A CENTURY OF SCREEN SMASHES

FOR those of us who love an anniversary, every new year arrives replete with promise. And a little digging uncovers all sorts of tenuous connections and coincidences. Consider the timelessness of the classic film It’s A Wonderful Life, with James Stewart (left), which turns 75 this year. So do Sylvester Stallone, Susan Sarandon, Cher and Steven Spielberg. I’ll leave you to decide whether any of them has aged better than Frank Capra’s masterpiece. Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story, by the way, is now due to come out in December 2021 — 60 years, give or take a month or two, after the Oscar-festooned original. As for films that are 50 years old this year, was there ever a more eventful month for contentious new releases than December 1971? A Clockwork Orange, Straw Dogs and Dirty Harry (right) all came out within ten days of each other, igniting widespread alarm about cinematic violence.

Three rising British movie stars turn 25 this year: Tom Holland, Florence Pugh and Anya Taylor-Joy. They breathed their first in the year that Gene Kelly, Greer Garson and Claudette Colbert breathed their last — a reminder that when we say they don’t make ’em like they used to, maybe they do. Well, sort of.

Just to wave the Union Jack even more vigorously, in May it will be 40 years since the enduringly splendid Chariots Of Fire burst through the tape of our collective consciousness. I remember it vividly. I was a homesick teenager living in Paris and had never seen a film that so stirred my patriotic juices.

A perhaps more significant anniversary, however, marks an event not many of us remember. In January 1921, Charlie Chaplin’s first featurelength picture as writer, director, producer and star, The Kid, was released to thunderous acclaim. To connect then with now, The Kid enjoys a rare 100 per cent rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. A whole century on, it’s still a delight. On that positive note, Happy New Year!