Pamela Hutchinson

England

Writer and Film Critic at Freelance

Articles

Finest hours: Derren Nesbitt as the hissable Nazi in Where Eagles Dare, “the least boring film ever made”

1 week ago | bfi.org.uk | David Parkinson |Josephine Botting |George Bass |Pamela Hutchinson

It takes chops to steal a film from Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. But Derren Nesbitt – who turns 90 on 19 June – did exactly that in Brian G. Hutton’s film of Alistair MacLean’s Where Eagles Dare (1968). And he was only on screen for a fraction of the epic’s 155-minute running time. He had played Germans before, in The Blue Max (1965) and The Naked Runner (1967).
Edward G. Robinson’s rare British film: remembering 1930s fish-out-of-water drama Thunder in the City

1 week ago | bfi.org.uk | Josephine Botting Rarities |Josephine Botting |George Bass |Pamela Hutchinson

In September 1962, the Sunday Express reported on the presence of a fading Hollywood star in London. “Once he could not have stepped into a London street without being mobbed,” the article said. “Now at 8.30 on a busy morning in Oxford Street, no one pays the slightest attention to him. Who is he, this man with a beard who goes unnoticed in the crowd? He was once the greatest screen tough guy of them all.” The former ‘tough guy’ was Edward G.
70 years of Hammer’s The Quatermass Xperiment: a very British alien invasion movie

2 weeks ago | bfi.org.uk | George Bass |Pamela Hutchinson |Adam Scovell |Tambay Obenson

Bringing claustrophobic dread and gory practical effects to an English village, The Quatermass Xperiment is the movie that put Hammer Films on the map and has proved an enduring inspiration to the likes of Stephen King and John Carpenter. 13 June 2025An experimental space rocket has returned to earth, crash-landing outside an English village.
60 years of Repulsion: how the London locations look today

2 weeks ago | bfi.org.uk | Adam Scovell |Pamela Hutchinson |Philip Strick |Brogan Morris

Roman Polanski’s ‘Apartment Trilogy’ includes some of the most unnerving urban portraits ever put on film. With the occult conspiracy of Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and the bizarre delusions of The Tenant (1976), these films look at the modern city as a realm of intensely paranoid horror and psychological torment. Rosemary’s Baby takes place in New York and The Tenant is set in Paris, but the trilogy begins with 1965’s Repulsion, where the city in question is London.
60 years of Repulsion: how the London locations looks today

2 weeks ago | bfi.org.uk | Adam Scovell |Pamela Hutchinson |Philip Strick |Brogan Morris

Roman Polanski’s ‘Apartment Trilogy’ includes some of the most unnerving urban portraits ever put on film. With the occult conspiracy of Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and the bizarre delusions of The Tenant (1976), these films look at the modern city as a realm of intensely paranoid horror and psychological torment. Rosemary’s Baby takes place in New York and The Tenant is set in Paris, but the trilogy begins with 1965’s Repulsion, where the city in question is London.
‘Breath-stoppingly tense’: which Mission: Impossible film is the greatest?

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Radheyan Simonpillai |Joel Snape |Stuart Heritage |Benjamin Lee |Jesse Hassenger |Pamela Hutchinson | +1 more

Mission: ImpossibleMission: Impossible’s slick and sensuous surface bears no trace of the drama behind the scenes making it. During production, the screenwriters of Jurassic Park (David Koepp) and Chinatown (Robert Towne) sent in duelling script pages for director Brian De Palma and producer Tom Cruise to wrestle over.
A Woman of Paris: “Whatever Became of Marie St. Clair?”

Mar 18, 2025 | criterion.com | Pamela Hutchinson

Essays— Mar 18, 2025 In 1923, Charlie Chaplin surprised the world with a major departure from his celebrated comic style. The opening title of his minimalist masterpiece A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate describes it as his “first serious drama,” but it was even more than that. It was his second feature-length film, but the first movie he had made in which he did not star—a move he would not repeat until 1967’s A Countess from Hong Kong.
Guardian writers pick their favourite Gene Hackman movies

Mar 1, 2025 | msn.com | Radheyan Simonpillai |Andrew Pulver |Charles Bramesco |Andrew Lawrence |Pamela Hutchinson |Scott Tobias | +1 more

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From Unforgiven to The Firm: Guardian writers pick their favourite Gene Hackman movies

Mar 1, 2025 | theguardian.com | Radheyan Simonpillai |Andrew Pulver |Benjamin Lee |Charles Bramesco |Andrew Lawrence |Pamela Hutchinson | +2 more

The French ConnectionAlmost five minutes go by in The French Connection before we get a good look at Gene Hackman. Various other operators come and go in William Friedkin’s gritty and unsettling procedural – based on a real heroin sting – before Hackman’s Detective Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle emerges from behind an ill-fitting undercover Santa Claus outfit, like a background player busting into his first lead role.
5 things to watch this weekend - 17 to 19 January

Jan 17, 2025 | bfi.org.uk | Sam Wigley |Matthew Thrift |Anton Bitel |Pamela Hutchinson

Where’s it on? Cinemas nationwideReteaming his Forrest Gump (1994) stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright 30 years later, Robert Zemeckis’s new film has been harshly received in many quarters but is surely bolder, more suggestive and more aesthetically adventurous than many of this year’s more feted awards candidates.