Twelve Films At Christmas - 3 & 4

An Inspector Calls is a 1954 screen adaptation of J.B. Priestley's 1945 stage play. I suppose I should declare an interest - I played Arthur Birling on the stage. A fascinating role - an industrialist caught up in his own importance and blind to the terrors about to be unleashed on the world (the play is set in 1912). The play is masterful and, Midsummer Night's Dream aside, the best in which I appeared in my limited am-dram career.  

The play is designedly claustrophobic - befitting the enclosed and comfortable world of the Birling family. A frequent problem with movie adaptations is that they feel duty-bound to open up the world of the play. An Inspector Calls is no exception to this problem. The flash-back technique takes the place of the play's taut, almost confessional, exposition of the flaws of the assembled characters. As the inspector (for no reason that is discernible to me, renamed Poole in place of the play's Goole) Alastair Sim is excellent. This is a perfectly decent movie but if the chance presents itself you should see the play. 61/100. 

When We Were Kings is a curiosity. It is a time capsule of a film. It assembles documentary footage surrounding the 1974 Foreman v Ali heavyweight title fight in Zaire. The film itself had originally been projected as a record of the 'Black Woodstock' concert held at the same time as the fight (the fight was delayed due to an injury to Foreman). It ran into problems of copyright and the film never saw the light of day until 1997. The stunning result of the fight is correctly part of the lore of the twentieth century. Ali and (to a necessarily smaller degree) Foreman are titanic figures. The film gives us insight into the articulate warrior Ali. We see the emergence of the malign influence of promoter Don King. An important record of a moment in history. 70/100.