jc-osms A fondly remembered film from my youth and one I've re-visited more than once since, it still charms me today. A delightful and thrilling fantasy, it plays almost as well to adults as to its no doubt target audience of children.The Dickensian-styled story is well-wrought with a nice blend of mystery, enchantment and adventure throughout. Sympathetically and winningly directed by British character actor Lionel Jeffries who gives himself a brief expository scene too, it's a perfect example of family entertainment.All the principal characters are well-played, especially Laurence Naismith as the twinkle eyed title character, out to right wrongs from a hundred years before and Diana Dors as an over-the-top scheming harridan figure whose plans the amazing Mr B thwarts with the help of two young children from the future. All the child-actors act very well and for the most part avoid the usual wooden-ness in similar portrayals.I won't give away any of the ingenious plot but it all resolves and revolves around a race to save a young heir and his sister from being murdered in a deliberately-set house fire in a plot devised by Dors and acted upon by her simpleton husband. In fact the film just tails off a little after its fiery climax, although it redeems itself with a happy ending and an unusual but warm-hearted end-credit sequence wholly in keeping with what has gone before. There's a fine understated score by Elmer Berstein too.It probably helps that this film evokes my happy child-hood but watching it again forty years on, I'm pleased to say I enjoyed it just as much as I did in a Glasgow flea-pit in 1973.

Leofwine_draca THE AMAZING MR. BLUNDEN is a delightful old-fashioned ghost story in the best traditional sense. Directed to the hilt by actor Lionel Jeffries, who clearly has a thorough understanding of his genre, this is timeless stuff, a children's film filled with the kind of atmosphere and engaging storyline that you won't find in most of today's soulless fare.The story is entirely predictable for this particular sub-genre; two kids move to a remote and dilapidated country mansion, which they soon discover is inhabited by the ghosts of two children who mysteriously died in a fire in the past. What follows is a traditional time-slip tale along the lines of TOM'S MIDNIGHT GARDEN, packed with familiar character actors a sense of quality.As director, Jeffries has an eye for a decent performance, and thus the film is inhabited by quality acting. Lynne Frederick and Garry Miller are excellent as the protagonist twosome caught up in the supernatural events, and the likes of Graham Crowden, David Lodge, Madeline Smith, Diana Dors and of course Laurence Naismith excel in various supporting parts.The narrative is action-packed, filled with incident and never less than engaging, and the story as a whole is filled with atmosphere and a kind of timeless joy which makes it highly entertaining to watch. Sad to say they don't make films like this anymore, which for me is a real pity.

MARIO GAUCI This Halloween challenge is giving me the opportunity to catch up with a lot of horror-themed movies I missed out on as I was growing up and this genteel but utterly charming children's ghost story is yet another one such instance. Two young kids who have inherited 30,000 pounds (a fortune in 19th Century England) are about to be done in by their half-brother' (James Villiers)'s nasty in-laws – a grotesque couple almost unrecognizably played by Diana Dors (complete with funny speech impediment) and David Lodge (playing a brain-damaged ex-boxer). Unfortunately, their pleas for intervention to both Villiers and their solicitor Mr. Blunden (Laurence Naismith) fall on deaf ears, but the latter becomes so guilt-stricken that he reappears a century later and 'wills' a modern-day couple of kids back into the past to save his charges from a fiery death! The film is highlighted by a literate script (by director Jeffries), a meticulously-detailed production (for what it's worth, the early setting in London's Camden Town brought back memories to my visits there in January 2007, highlighted by my attending an all-star Rock concert!), an evocative score (by Elmer Bernstein) and good performances by all concerned. Ill-fated Lynne Frederick is one of the children, Hammer starlet Madeline Smith plays Dors' child-like daughter, while Graham Crowden appears briefly as the newest partner in Blunden's firm whose name the old man can never remember; incidentally, the cast list isn't given at the film's beginning – rather, Jeffries has the actors introduced at the end and bowing down to the audience just like in a stage play! Incidentally, former actor Jeffries (where he specialized in eccentric, bubbly types) had a reasonable directing career (with a penchant for children-oriented, though not necessarily kiddie, fare): even if his first effort – THE RAILWAY CHILDREN (1970) – is generally the best regarded of the lot, this one's definitely a close second.Though not genuine horror fare as such, the ghost and time-travel devices here are enough to grant THE AMAZING MR. BLUNDEN a deserving place in this Halloween challenge; even so, the Leonard Maltin Film Guide's comment regarding its "muddled plot line" probably refers to the children going forward in time before the fateful accident (the boy even says, "You can be a ghost but you don't have to be dead") – yet, in the modern-day (1918) setting, we can clearly see their graves (which are no longer there by the end, having been replaced by a monument dedicated to Mr. Blunden who has now died in their place)! In conclusion and, just for the record, my viewing of the film was unfortunately slightly – but, thankfully, not too obtrusively – hampered by the jerky motion associated with the DivX format.

AB-com This film is an old favourite of my girlfriend's. When we watched it together recently, I was watching it for the first time.The film concerns time-travel and it struck me that the ending of the film contravenes the Grandfather Paradox. This theorem states that I cannot go back in time and kill my grandfather because that would result in me never having been born. Or if I did, then surely I would cease to exist at the moment I killed him.SPOILERIn this film Jamie and Lucy go back in time to save three children from dying in a fire: Sarah, Tom and Sarah's younger brother, George.This they do, but then we learn that Sarah and Tom are Jamie and Lucy's great great grandparents. This cannot be true, as Jamie and Lucy cannot exist on the timeline established before they go back in time because their great great grandparents died in the fire!END OF SPOILERIt's a pedantic point and one that I only thought of after talking about the film afterwards. Still, it goes to show how intricate time-travel related stories are.