Movie Review: Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421229/

Dame Joan Plowright, 3rd wife and widow of Laurence Olivier is one of the most accomplished actresses in England.  In this five-star gem of a movie, she plays the role of Sara Palfrey, a widow, who moves into The Claremont (a residential hotel in London) to seek her own life.

Along the way, she meets Rupert Friend, who plays a young and struggling writer named Ludo, and befriends him.  She had been talking to other residents of the hotel about her grandson who, despite frequent invitations, has never come to visit her.  So, when she tells them that a young man will be dining with her, they assume the young man is her grandson.

She and Ludo conspire to have him play the part of her grandson at dinner, and a delightful story ensues.  This film is not a cross-generational romance.  Ludo begins to look on Mrs. P. as a surrogate grandmother, and she treats him as a grandson.

This was only Rupert Friend's third movie, and he is a delight to look at.  A few years later, he starred in  'The Young Victoria' as Prince Albert.

This film is more than worth two hours of anyone's time.

Movie Review - The Train (1964) Four stars out of five.

It is a matter of historical record that the Nazis began to loot the art treasures of Europe almost before WW II began, and continued to do so throughout the war.  They systematically looted the collections the wealthy, and collections of art housed in museums.   The recent film The Woman in Gold  contains a vivid account of one woman's struggle to recover valuable paintings removed from her family's home in Vienna by the Nazis.

The movie takes place near the end of the war, when Paris is literally days away from being liberated.  A Nazi Colonel, portrayed by veteran actor Paul Scofield has rounded up enough valuable art from a museum to fill a train of boxcars and is determined to get the train to Germany before the allies arrive.

Burt Lancaster stars as Paul Labiche, a veteran French railway inspector whose job is to keep the trains in France running, albeit under Nazi authority.  Labiche also belongs to a small group of partisans who have had some success in sabotaging Germain trains.  Paul Labiche has little knowledge of or love for art, and initially turns down a request for help in preventing the trainload of artwork from leaving the country.

However, he is finally convinced that the train's cargo represents the "glory of France" and begins to enthusiastically participate in a plot to save the train and its cargo.

The irony of the film is that the German Colonel is trying to save art (Cezanne, Picasso, Monet, et al)  that would be considered degenerate by Hitler and his cronies; while Labice is trying to save something that he neither understands nor appreciates.

This movie stands the test of time extremely well, and its transfer to DVD is one of the best I've ever seen.  Every scene is crisp and clear, and to make matters better, subtitles have been provided.

Fans of steam railroading will enjoy the behind the scenes depictions of how railroads operated during the glory days of steam.