Last night I watched my first W.C. Fields film, Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935/Bruckman); the fact that the title has absolutely no relevance to the plot or synopsis is telling of the casual unfolding of the narrative. There's something very humble and human in this sort of humour; a bumbling everyman who doesn't like many people, lacking the sharp wit of, say, Groucho Marx, but astute and honest enough to get by in his own way. I look forward to seeing others; I know It's a Gift is one of Turnbull's favourites.

Today, on the big screen I saw Gilda (1946/Vidor). Rita Hayworth is astonishing, and the sexual ambiguity of the protagonist is obvious and unsettling. Very good.

Has anyone on here (Geoff, SC, DC, Turnbull?) seen Fritz Lang's The Woman in the Window (1944)? Made in the same year as Double Indemnity and with Edward G. Robinson, too. I saw it on the big screen this past Friday and was terribly disappointed by its end, and found its perspective transition half-way through unwarranted and awkward. Worth seeing for Lang's visual composition and disciplined camera movement, though; I loved the long, extended sequence early on when Robinson gets rid of the corpse - it's echoed in Plein Soleil, a 60s French noir based on The Talented Mr. Ripley with the impeccable Alain Delon.