Leslie Halliwell - thirty years gone

[Keebleman]

The one-man IMDb passed away thirty years ago today.  I still miss him.  He was crotchety, reactionary, snobbish, snide, and by the end it seemed he simply didn't care anymore - cinema had let him down too many times.  But apart from the thanks owed him for providing, for decades, an essential resource for movie buffs when there was virtually nowhere else to turn, he was also an excellent writer and had a deep love for movies.  That it was a love that generally stayed within strict parameters is neither here nor there - we all have biases and prejudices.  And he could occasionally warmly praise movies which one would have thought would be anathema to him: Cries and Whispers and Taxi Driver are two that come to mind.

His essay The Decline and Fall of the Movie is a terrific apologia, "a deliberate hatchet job from a disappointed fan," as he puts it himself.  It's a wonderful examination of what it feels like to fall out of love.  My favourite passage is from a postscript he added in 1985 in which he talks about the then still fairly new trend for "blockbuster adventures at the level of the old newspaper comic strips."

This is perhaps the most astonishing development of all.  Adults thirty years ago might possibly have enjoyed E.T., as they enjoyed The Wizard of Oz, but can you imagine them willingly sitting through Star Wars, Ghostbusters or Gremlins?  I am not denying that when one is in the mood for something very easy these films can provide a modicum of simple enjoyment, but by and large they are hokum entertainments by and for the untrained mind, and I think one should feel just a little ashamed of submitting to them at a time when a once-great art is providing nothing more stimulating.

http://www.lesliehalliwell.com/decline_fall/index.html

[Glebe]

A friend had a few edition of his movie guide, I remember his dismissal of Close Encounters - he said that some old B-movie had more suspense than it or something - rilling me up a bit.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

A friend had a few edition of his movie guide, I remember his dismissal of Close Encounters - he said that some old B-movie had more suspense than it or something - rilling me up a bit.

Spot on.  CE was boring.

[Glebe]

Spot on.  CE was boring.

*speechless with rage*

[Funcrusher]

It's a good thing he never lived to see the state of cinema in 2019 - he'd probably have a bit of grudging respect for Star Wars and Ghostbusters by comparison.

[Brundle-Fly]

I bet he couldn't get on with dance music either. 

[greenman]

Honestly though a lot of the stuff he rated highly from the "golden era" really wasn't anymore ambitious than those blockbusters was it?

[BlodwynPig]

Finally, someone who tells it like it is. Star Wars was dull. Empire Strikes Back was good because of the pub scene.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I've never read Halliwell, Leonard Maltin used to be my go to guy just because the book was smaller and more portable, just how I like my women. Or something.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Halliwell was brilliantly sarcastic and caustic in a lot of his reviews.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

It's a good thing he never lived to see the state of cinema in 2019 - he'd probably have a bit of grudging respect for Star Wars and Ghostbusters by comparison.

He'd be rolling in his grave at the response to the recent ones.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Halliwell was brilliantly sarcastic and caustic in a lot of his reviews.

He was also, as mentioned earlier, a maddeningly narrow-minded, reactionary curmudgeon who detested most films made after about 1965. That's a generalisation, yes, but not much of one.

However, you can't fault his dedication. His hefty reference books, while deeply frustrating in many ways, were an indispensable resource in the pre-internet age. I'm actually quite fond of the miserable old goat, as I associate his books with my teenage discovery of so many incredible films (most of which he hated, but that's by the by).

And you do have to laugh at his more scathing reviews sometimes. His description of The Breakfast Club as "abysmal apologia for loutish teenage behaviour" is particularly funny, it's such an unreasonably angry old man response to an essentially harmless teen movie. 

[goinggoinggone]

Is there any truth to him stepping down as ITV's film buyer, because they wanted to show Police Academy and that he liked Robocop of all things?  I'm almost certain the last one is complete bollocks, but I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere... possibly on this site... but then again he proabably saw it as a film for people who grew up torturing animals, or something.

[Egyptian Feast]

Is there any truth to him stepping down as ITV's film buyer, because they wanted to show Police Academy and that he liked Robocop of all things?  I'm almost certain the last one is complete bollocks, but I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere... possibly on this site... but then again he proabably saw it as a film for people who grew up torturing animals, or something.

I seem to recall him giving it 3 out of 4 stars and including Ken Russell's statement about it being the greatest sci-fi movie since Metropolis in the critic's quotes.

[Keebleman]

Is there any truth to him stepping down as ITV's film buyer, because they wanted to show Police Academy and that he liked Robocop of all things?  I'm almost certain the last one is complete bollocks, but I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere... possibly on this site... but then again he proabably saw it as a film for people who grew up torturing animals, or something.

Robocop was one of the films for which he seemed to have a grudging respect, even giving it a one-star rating (the vast majority of films he reviewed had no stars at all, indicating routine or worse) but he treated it as a 'minor' film in his book, not bothering to list any but the main credits, like it was some Tarzan B-picture from the 40s.

[Keebleman]

I seem to recall him giving it 3 out of 4 stars and including Ken Russell's statement about it being the greatest sci-fi movie since Metropolis in the critic's quotes.

That was probably John Walker's update.  Walker and subsequent editors amended many but not all of Halliwell's more idiosyncratic opinions but without preserving the originals, with the result that the book lost its personality and hence any reason to buy it.

[Keebleman]

I was astonished when I learned he had been born in 1929.  His opinions were so determinedly old-fashioned that I thought he must have been at least ten years older, closer to twenty.  Many of the films he loved so dearly, that I assumed he had seen on first release, he can't have seen until early adulthood.

If you can find it, I would definitely recommend his book on comedy, Double Take and Fade Away, published a year before his death.  Being Halliwell, there are huge gaps: Python and the Goons get a paragraph each, alternative comedy is not mentioned at all, but there are superb chapters on British comedy in the 30s and 40s and on American TV comedy in the 50s and 60s.

[biggytitbo]

I had one of his big books as a kid and would read it endlessly - to this name I can name the year of any film made before about 1995.


He always liked Laurel and Hardy and Will Hay, which is good enough for me.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

I remember in his book of films, a film called Let Us Be Gay, which I think was from the 1940s, got summed-up with the comment 'now very dated, like it's title.'

[mothman]

My dad used to get me a new edition of his Film Guide for Christmas every few years - I was rather glad when he stopped because it was of little to no use to me. By then, we had the internet and IMDb, a rather basic list of films was of no use to me whatsoever.

Plus - I'm going to get a bit autobiographical here, sorry - I'd developed rather a phobia of film list books. In the late 80s or early 90s me dad got me Danny Peary's Guide For The Film Fanatic, a list book of films everyone should see (up to about 1986 when it was written, anyway). Then, later when I was a depressed unemployed (and almost unemployable) graduate and film buff with no life or money, I became obsessed with seeing as many as possible. I crossed them off as I did. I monitored my progress on a spreadsheet, for fuck's sake. I get quite panicky even thinking about it. For about two years all I did was try to find work, and try to cross films off that damn list. I don't actually know what I did to escape that cycle; not by getting a job (which I did, eventually), I don't think - I think I just went cold turkey one day, threw my notes away, deleted the spreadsheet. I think I still have Peary's book, in the loft... I;m afraid to even look at it. There's a Stephen King short story about someone who becomes :infected" by another's madness and starts seeing these little elf creatures: that story captures perfectly this strange madness that overcame me.

TL;DR film list books can get in grave.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

That was probably John Walker's update.  Walker and subsequent editors amended many but not all of Halliwell's more idiosyncratic opinions but without preserving the originals, with the result that the book lost its personality and hence any reason to buy it.

That sounds crap.  I loved his punch and bite in reviews.

[Shit Good Nose]

Despite disliking pretty much everything that wasn't Citizen Kane, his guide was by far the best one for technical reference and, as far as I can recall, his was the first one to start cross referencing with other films.  But when Videohounds started their guides in the mid 90s, with more objectivity and more consideration for genre films, Halliwell's became redundant.  And Videohounds was still useful for a few years into IMDB's existence - most people forget/don't realise that IMDB was just one bloke and then a few mates working out of a house in Bristol cribbing film credits for every film they saw - it was a totally different thing from what it is now.

Course, since IMDB was snaffled up by Amazon, and Wikipedia's coverage of films has increased, they've both rendered print guides irrelevant and a waste of money.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Robocop was one of the films for which he seemed to have a grudging respect, even giving it a one-star rating (the vast majority of films he reviewed had no stars at all, indicating routine or worse) but he treated it as a 'minor' film in his book, not bothering to list any but the main credits, like it was some Tarzan B-picture from the 40s.

Yeah, he could be surprising sometimes. This handy guide to his - usually negative - opinions of 'modern' cinema reminds us that he did actually like classics such as Taxi Driver, The Godfather, Don't Look Now, Star Wars, Hannah & Her Sisters and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

http://www.lesliehalliwell.com/modern_times/index.html

However, so many other great films from that era fall into the 'grudging respect' category: Rocky, Saturday Night Fever, Back to the Future, An American Werewolf in London...

Mind you, some of his scathing dismissals are absolutely spot on. The thought of him having to sit through the likes of Police Academy and Smokey & the Bandit 2 actually makes me feel a bit sad for him.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

If you can find it, I would definitely recommend his book on comedy, Double Take and Fade Away, published a year before his death.  Being Halliwell, there are huge gaps: Python and the Goons get a paragraph each, alternative comedy is not mentioned at all, but there are superb chapters on British comedy in the 30s and 40s and on American TV comedy in the 50s and 60s.

Seconded, I used to re-read that book constantly when I was a kid. As you say, he gives typically short shrift to things he doesn't care for - e.g. he has a typical film snob attitude towards the work of 'lowbrow' comics such as Jerry Lewis and Abbott & Costello - but it's still a fascinating read.

[Shit Good Nose]

Yeah, he could be surprising sometimes. This handy guide to his - usually negative - opinions of 'modern' cinema reminds us that he did actually like classics such as Taxi Driver, The Godfather, Don't Look Now, Star Wars, Hannah & Her Sisters and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

http://www.lesliehalliwell.com/modern_times/index.html

However, so many other great films from that era fall into the 'grudging respect' category: Rocky, Saturday Night Fever, Back to the Future, An American Werewolf in London...

In earlier guides he completely slated Blade Runner and everything about it, but in later ones (leading up to his death) he was vaguely complimentary about the special effects.  I can't recall if he ever ended up giving it one star, but then he didn't live to see it become heralded as a masterpiece so just continued to tow the party line of it being a bit rubs.