Wednesday 24 May 2000

2016 Centennials


I had a lot of fun in 2014 watching each of the 36 films that Charlie Chaplin made in 1914 (well, the 35 that still exist, at least). What made it most fun was watching them a hundred years to the day from their original release, so seeing them at the rate that the audiences of the time did.

A neat side effect was that I kept on task and so inherently had a book ready to proof and edit by the end of the year, so I conjured up a similar project. This one wouldn't involve the centennials of films but of people, working to the same sort of structure.


So, here's 2016 Centennials.

Each review here was posted on what would have been (or in some instances actually was) the one hundredth birthday of someone important to the film industry. The aim was to remember them with an interesting film from their career that, in the process, allows me to explore another aspect of history, whether to cinema, something wider or both.

Some of these people are famous, household names that we grew up watching. Some aren't. And some used to be, but a hundred years is a long time and things change. All, however, are important.

These carefully curated films vary by era, genre and nationality and, together, help to enrich my knowledge and maybe yours too. I collated these reviews into a book, A Hundred in 2016, which won the Alan Black Cirque du Livre Book of the Festival in 2017.

Rating System
1 - Abysmal | 2 - Bad | 3 - Poor | 4 - OK | 5 - Good | 6 - Excellent | 7 - Classic

Latest Review (19 Dec 2016)
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde 1971 5 5 Roy Ward Baker IMDb

All 2018 Centennial Reviews
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
10 Rillington Place 1971 7 6 Richard Fleischer IMDb
23 Paces to Baker Street 1956 5 5 Henry Hathaway IMDb
Angel Baby 1961 5 5 Paul Wendkos IMDb
Babies for Sale 1940 5 5 Charles Barton IMDb
The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend 1949 4 4 Preston Sturges IMDb
Behold a Pale Horse 1964 4 4 Fred Zinnemann IMDb
The Brute Man 1946 4 4 Jean Yarbrough IMDb
Bwana Devil 1952 3 3 Arch Oboler IMDb
Carry On... Up the Khyber 1968 6 5 Gerald Thomas IMDb
Curse of the Queerwolf 1988 5 4 Mark Pirro IMDb
The Curse of the Werewolf 1961 5 5 Terence Fisher IMDb
Dance of the Vampires 1967 5 4 Roman Polanski IMDb
The Dark Eyes of London 1939 5 5 Walter Summers IMDb
Death Car on the Freeway 1979 4 4 Hal Needham IMDb
Deathtrap 1982 6 6 Sidney Lumet IMDb
Doctor Syn 1937 5 5 Roy William Neill IMDb
Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine 1965 4 4 Norman Taurog IMDb
Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde 1971 5 5 Roy Ward Baker IMDb
The Ghost Breakers 1940 5 5 George Marshall IMDb
Hellzapoppin' 1941 6 5 H. C. Potter IMDb
Horrors of the Black Museum 1959 5 5 Arthur Crabtree IMDb
The Inheritance 1962 6 6 Masaki Kobayashi IMDb
The Iroquois Trail 1950 4 4 Phil Karlson IMDb
Johnny O'Clock 1947 4 4 Robert Rossen IMDb
Lady in a Cage 1964 5 6 Walter Grauman IMDb
The Lost World 1960 3 3 Irwin Allen IMDb
The Night of the Grizzly 1966 5 4 Joseph Pevney IMDb
Postal Inspector 1936 4 4 Otto Brower IMDb
Psychout for Murder 1969 5 5 Edward Ross IMDb
The Shiralee 1957 5 5 Leslie Norman IMDb
Skidoo 1968 2 2 Otto Preminger IMDb
The Spiral Staircase 1945 6 6 Robert Siodmak IMDb
The Tattered Dress 1957 6 5 Jack Arnold IMDb
Terror in a Texas Town 1958 6 5 Joseph H. Lewis IMDb
The Villain 1979 3 4 Hal Needham IMDb

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