Chip Kaufmann’s Pick:

Cash On Demand (1961)

Having done a feature article on British actor Peter Cushing for this issue, it seems only fitting to select one of his many available movies as my DVD pick. Since this is the December issue and the holidays are just around the corner, I decided to select a film with a holiday theme. The crime caper film Cash on Demand focuses on a bank robbery being committed just a few days before Christmas.

Cushing plays Harry Fordyce, a local bank manager with Scrooge like tendencies. He never smiles, berates his employees, and never contributes any money for the annual Christmas party. Into his tightly controlled world comes Colonel Gore Hepburn (Andre Morell), a bank insurance investigator who turns out to be a clever but ruthless robber who is holding Fordyce’s family hostage with plans to seriously harm them if Fordyce doesn’t help him with the robbery.

The once lordly and unflappable Fordyce slowly becomes more and more unglued as the robbery unfolds and he comes to the realization that he has no friends and is powerless to help his family. Will the heist succeed and, if it doesn’t, what will be the consequences for everyone involved?

Clocking in at a brisk 84 minutes, Cash On Demand is a highly suspenseful British B movie with the tension occasionally relieved by some dry deadpan humor and the less than flattering observations that the Colonel makes concerning Fordyce’s character. Cushing loved this role of the aloof bank manager and considered it to be his finest screen portrayal. He may be right.

Cash On Demand is one of six films found on the Sony 3 DVD set Hammer Films: The Icons of Suspense Collection. The other five titles are very similar so that if you enjoy old black & white suspense films in the Alfred Hitchcock tradition, then you should give this set a try. It’s available locally and from Netflix, one DVD at a time.

Michelle Keenan’s Pick:

Love Actually (2003)

After reviewing About Time this month, my DVD (and holiday) pick just had to be my favorite Richard Curtis film (and the seasonably appropriate) Love Actually. Just released in a 10th anniversary edition, Love Actually offers a pleasant alternative to more traditional holiday movie fare. If you’ve never seen it before, it may just become a new perennial favorite. Written and directed by Richard Curtis, Love Actually stars a cast of who’s who in current British cinema.

The film tells the stories of eight loosely related and inter-related couples in the month leading up to Christmas in London. Here’s just a few of the highlights: Liam Neeson is a recent widower and now single father to his young stepson (Thomas Sangster). Emma Thompson is a housewife and mum who suspects her husband, Alan Rickman, is cheating on her with his secretary.

Colin Firth is a best-selling author, who retreats to the French countryside to work on his latest novel and nurse a broken heart. Bill Nighy is an aging rock star and former drug addict who’s trying to make it back to the top of the pop charts with a Christmas song (achieved only if his beats a popular young boy band), and last but not least, Hugh Grant is the newly elected Prime Minister who finds himself more than a little distracted by a member of his household staff. Remember – those are just a few of the highlights.

With so many plots and sub plots, we’ve got about twenty characters to follow. It sounds like it should be a train wreck, and in many hands it would be, but here, it’s sheer perfection. Love Actually is a true delight, raising the bar on romantic comedies. It opens and closes with Hugh Grant’s narrative and a fantastic, ever growing collage of real-life footage of loved ones meeting loved ones off the plane at Heathrow International Airport.

The opening narrative combined with the images sets the tone for the whole film. Every character is in pursuit of love in one form in another. Couched with genuine comedy and heart, the film smartly fires on all cylinders and has a surprising universal appeal.

In addition to the actors mentioned above, the cast also includes Rowan Atkinson, Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave), Gregor Fisher, Martin Freeman, Keira Knightley, Andrew Lincoln, Kris Marshall, Martine McCutcheon, Lucia Moniz, Rodrigo Santoro, and Billy Bob Thornton. Love Actually marked Richard Curtis’ directorial debut. Known previously as the writer of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, this was a fitting [if not overdue] debut.

This movie reminds you that even during hectic time of year, love actually is really all around us. Rent it, watch it with someone you love and enjoy a respite from the season.