Film Review
Daily
Welcome
to
the Film Review Daily website. After 71 years and 70 issues of the
ground-breaking volume kicked off by F. Maurice Speed in 1944, the
digital age
has caught up with us (and we with it). So, as the 70th edition – Film
Review 2014-2015 – hit the bookstalls (and all good
internet
retailers), we launched the Film Review
Daily website with up-to-date critiques by our usual panel of
discerning
and frequently movie-loving critics.
For
those
unfamiliar with F. Maurice Speed’s publishing phenomenon, a quick
history
lesson: at its height, Film Review
shipped 250,000 copies a year and contributors included Alfred
Hitchcock, Bob
Hope, Danny Kaye, Rita Hayworth, Michael Powell, Cecil B. DeMille and
James
Mason. The second edition of the annual did so well that it provided
Maurice
with the funds to buy a house and to furnish it “lavishly,” in his own
words.
Later
on, the
book attracted the penmanship of such venerable writers as William K.
Everson,
Peter Cowie, Oswell Blakeston, Ivan Butler, Gordon Gow and Anthony
Slide. In
the intervening years, the Annual also passed through the hands of
several
publishers, starting out with Macdonald and then moving on to W.H.
Allen,
Columbus, Virgin, Reynolds & Hearn and now, lastly, Signum
Books. Since
Maurice hung up his typewriter, Film
Review was edited by four other journalists (including
myself, for two
decades) and in its final years the duties were shared by Michael
Darvell and
Mansel Stimpson. Of course, you can't keep a good brand down.
James Cameron-Wilson
Star Ratings
Exceptional
Very good
Good
Mediocre
Poor
Contact
Email: cameron.wilson@tesco.net