The Reel Deal
By By Nick Britton (that's Guangzhou)
Updated: 2004-05-26 14:41

Even if you're locking yourself indoors away from disease and doom, a few weeks' worth of fine films are at your fingertips: or, to be more precise, at the grubby mitts of your local DVD vendor. To get you inspired, we chose our personal top six flicks: limiting ourselves, we should add, to what is available on the streets of Shanghai. Pop the popcorn in the microwave, slip on your slippers and drop the disc in the player?- and prepare to be transported to a familiar yet distant world where women were to die for and men said things like, "Here's looking at you, kid."



The Ladykillers (1955)

It's a rare find on DVD, but worth the search. This is one of the greatest Ealing comedies, featuring Alec Guinness at his most hilarious, and depicting an England that was already fading into rose-tinted memory. Expect little old ladies, friendly policemen, and people who call each other "guv" and "mum" - all courtesy of a scriptwriter and director who were both American by birth.
The action centres on a gang of bungling crooks. Nothing unusual there, but the touch of genius was in adding a defenceless little old lady, played to perfection by Katie Johnson, who somehow defeats all the ruthless criminals' attempts to bump her off. Alec Guinness is the cringing, devious mastermind of the mob, while the four others are stock characters - the muscle man, the Cockney wideboy, the cowardly old fart, the sinister foreigner. The result of this mix is a perfectly crafted comedy which mixes slapstick, farce and black humour. Guffaws guaranteed.

The Apartment (1960)

Jack Lemmon was young and eager, Shirley MacLaine was babe - this movie was a long time ago. Nevertheless, Billy Wilder's The Apartment is among the few comedies ever to have won a best picture Oscar, and it is easy to see why. The film is set in the faceless world of a New York insurance company, in which Lemmon's character loans out his apartment to philandering managers to curry favor, until he finds something more worth chasing than the key to the executive washroom.

The morality play may seem naive by today's standards, but the dialogue sparkles with wit and Lemmon's physical comedy puts Jim Carrey to shame. Lemmon's showdown with the big bad boss to protect the honour of the damsel makes the crowd cheer, and the couple's decision to give up the big city rat race to move back to the country presages the rebellion against 1950s values that was to dominate popular culture later in the 1960s.