Q: Some movies seem to be made before we are ready for them. As I watched this film, made in 1988, in 1999, I thought I was watching the O.J. Simpson debacle (although I have very different opinions about the innocence of the individuals in each situation).

The Australian news media, if this movie is to be believed, devoured the case of a possible infanticide and truth was left as an afterthought. It was scary to see the scenes of invasive, swarming media hordes, ridiculous accounts of half-truths and lies and debates over the supposed merits of the case by persons at all levels of society.

Equally appalling is the media's depiction as indifferent and uncomprehending of the technical information in the case. I do wish more was made of the issue of religious prejudice in the case (the accused are Seven-Day Adventists).

Today these circuses have become common but that makes the lesson only more important.

Streep is excellent as usual, and this is the best I've ever seen Sam Neill. The Aussie accents get a bit thick at times but not incomprehensible.
A: positive
Q: John Thaw, of Inspector Morse fame, plays old Tom Oakley in this movie. Tom lives in a tiny English village during 1939 and the start of the Second World War. A bit of a recluse, Tom has not yet recovered from the death of his wife and son while he was serving during the First World War. If you can imagine Inspector Morse old and retired, twice as crochety as when he was a policeman, then you've got Tom Oakley's character.

Yet this heart of flint is about to melt. London children are evacuated in advance of the blitz. Young William (Willie) Beech is billeted with the protesting Tom. Willie is played to good effect by Nick Robinson.

This boy is in need of care with a capital C. Behind in school, still wetting the bed, and unable to read are the smallest of his problems. He comes from a horrific background in London, with a mother who cannot cope, to put it mildly.

Slowly, yet steadily, man and boy warm to each other. Tom discovers again his ability to love and care. And the boy learns to accept this love and caring. See Tom and Willie building a bomb shelter at the end of their garden. See Willie's joy at what is probably his first ever birthday party thrown by Tom.

Not to give away the ending, but Willie is adopted by Tom after much struggle, and the pair begin a new life much richer for their mutual love.

In this movie, Thaw and Robinson are following in a long line of movies where man meets boy and develop a mutual love. See the late Dirk Bogarde and Jon Whiteley in "Spanish Gardener". Or Clark Gable and Carlo Angeletti in "It Started in Naples". Or Robert Ulrich and Kenny Vadas in "Captains Courageous". Or Mel Gibson and Nick Stahl in "Man Without a Face".

Two points of interest. This is the only appearance of Thaw that I know of where he sings. Only a verse of a hymn, New Jerusalem, but he does sing.

Second, young Robinson also starred in a second movie featuring "Tom" in the title, "Tom's Midnight Garden", which is based on a classic children's novel.
A: positive
Q: If The Man in the White Suit had been done in America, can't you see either Danny Kaye or Jerry Lewis trying on Alec Guinness's Sidney Stratton on for size?

This is one of the best of Alec Guinness's films and certainly one of the best that Ealing Studios in the United Kingdom ever turned out. It's so perfectly fits within the time frame of the new Labour government and the society it was trying to build. It's amazing how in times of crisis capital and labor can agree.

Alec Guinness this meek little schnook of a man is obsessed with the idea that he can invent clothing that will never need cleaning, that in fact repels all kinds of foreign matter the minute it touches the garment.

He's a persistent cuss and he does succeed. Of course the implications haven't really been thought through about the kind of impact clothing like that will have on society. In the end everyone is chasing him down like they would a fugitive, almost like Peter Lorre from M or Orson Welles in The Stranger or even Robert Newton in Oliver Twist.

It's the mark of a great comedy film that a potentially serious situation like that chase as described in some of the serious films I've mentioned can be played for laughs. Poor Guinness's suit is not only white and stain repellent, but it glows like a neon sign.

Other than Guinness the best performances are from Cecil Parker as yet another pompous oaf, Joan Greenwood as his siren daughter and Ernest Thesiger the biggest clothing manufacturer in the UK>

Come to think of it, did Paramount borrow that suit from Ealing and give it to John Travolta for Saturday Night Fever?
A: positive
Q: Gorgeous bodies, gorgeous colors and camera work, pretentious dialog, banal plot. The name of the prima donna, Camilla, and the eponymous flowers that appear frequently, are enough to remind us of the plot similarities from Dumas' novel La Dame aux Camelias, the movie Camille starring Garbo and (I think) Robert Taylor, and last but not least Verdi's opera La Traviata. Beautiful, not-too-virtuous young ladies, social outcasts for one reason or another, loved, split up, reunited just in time to die of tuberculosis in the last scene... One forgives banal plots and stupid unrealistic dialog in opera, but why waste Hayak, Don Sutherland, a beautiful rendition of LA in the 30s, a deus ex machina earthquake that conveniently kills the other woman, and all that beauty on this mediocre turkey where there isn't even any beautiful singing?
A: negative