Cinema review: An American Werewolf in London | Animal House | Dead Man Running | Citizen Kane | John Landis

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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with DAN CARRIER
Published: 29 October 2009

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AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON - Directed by John Landis

JOHN Landis’s 1981 film about holidaying American student David (David Naughton) getting hairy during full moons and his love affair with British nurse Alex (Jenny Agutter) is still simply terrific.
We meet David and his friend Jack not long before the pair are bitten by a versipellis, (as they say in Latin) whilst out wandering across the Yorkshire moors.
David wakes up in hospital to learn of his friend’s demise, and then is helped to recuperate in the flat of his gorgeous nurse.
But things are not all as they should be with our backpacking friend, as Alex begins to discover once a month. Much of this classic was shot in Camden.
Look out for the death of the man exploring strange noises in the gardens of the flats called the The Pryors in East Heath Road – he wanders towards the Mixed Ponds and gets eaten.
Then there is our wolfman waking up in London Zoo, not to mention the scene in which a victim is chased through the deserted tunnels of Tottenham Court Road tube station.
An American Werewolf is entertaining, touching and deserves its status as the number one werewolf film ever made.

ANIMAL HOUSE - Directed by John Landis

WHILE remaining grotesque, tasteless and silly throughout, John Landis’s flick about badly behaving college boys spawned a million copies through the entire 1980s.
It is worth watching for the marvellous scene (among a few other stand out moments) where John Belushi wallops an acoustic guitar against the wall, in protest at the awful noise a winsome student hippie is making with the damn thing.
It still induces giggles when I think about it, 20 years after I first saw it.

DEAD MAN RUNNING - Directed by Alex de Rakoff

IF you like clichéd London gangster flicks then you’ll get a kick out of this, but it really adds nothing to the genre of hard men doing unpleasant stuff to one another.
It stars the always watchable Danny Dyer and Tamer Hassan, who have to face the wrath of a gang leader played by rapper Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson. The plot involves bags of cash owed to the bad guys by the “good” guys, who run around a lot being shouty, and not much else.

CITIZEN KANE - Directed by Orson Welles

THERE is not much to say about the Welles classic except take this opportunity to see it on the big screen.
Released in 1941, the story of newspaper magnate Charles Kane and the mystery behind his last words was nominated for nine Oscars (but won just one).
It caused much controversy: William Randolph Hearst forbade any mention of it in his papers because of Kane’s likeness to himself.

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