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If you were told you had a short time left to live, how would you spend your remaining days? Dame Deborah James, the woman who campaigned tirelessly to raise awareness of bowel cancer until her death last year, decided that her priority was to tell everyone to examine their number twos. Under her bold moniker, BowelBabe, she started blogging about her journey online after she was diagnosed with incurable stage four bowel cancer in 2016, aged 35. She quickly became the voice of bowel cancer activism, known for her tagline “Check your poo”, and for her work as a co-host on the BBC podcast You, Me and the Big C.

James died aged 40 on 28 June 2022, after going into palliative end-of-life care at her parent’s home. She lived one year longer than the doctors initially predicted. And now, her five years of campaigning are documented in the shattering BBC Two film BowelBabe in Her Own Words.

Take a refreshing plunge into classic French Poetic Realism — pre-noir drama with softer edges and a touch of romantic fatalism. A low-rent hotel on a barge canal is the gathering point for a cross-section of quasi- undesirables. Scandals and crimes aside, they’re a touching, human bunch, as performed to perfection by Louis Jouvet, Annabella, Arletty, Jane Marken, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Paulette Dubost and Bernard Blier. Marcel Carné’s show is also a beautiful production, with Alexandre Trauner designs that recreate ‘reality’ on an enormous scale.

Hôtel du Nord

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1139

1938 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 96 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 23, 2022 / 39.95

Starring: Annabella, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Louis Jouvet, Arletty, Paulette Dubost, Andrex, André Brunot, Henri Bosc, Marcel André, Bernard Blier, Jane Marken, François Périer, Dora Doll, Raymone.

Cinematography: Louis Née, Armand Thirard

Production Designer and Art Director: Alexandre Trauner

Film Editor: Marthe Gottie

Original Music: Maurice Jaubert

Written by Henri Jeanson,...

In-car film events are thriving, but unless you were a teen in the 50s you may not be familiar with their charms. Here are the the dos and don’ts

Modern Toss on drive-in cinemas

After a deeply weird year in which Andrex became more valuable per ounce than saffron and Jedward emerged as well-respected voices of scientific rigour, shops, gyms and beer gardens are now officially Open. You can even go and get a proper haircut, which has already had a marked effect on the number of people wandering the streets looking like John Cooper Clarke running a Tough Mudder. Without wanting to jinx it, things are – say it quietly – looking up.

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Fans of Jean Renoir will rush to see something ‘new’ from the great director; this very different Renoir picture sees him filming in the South of France, among regional laborers that bring their Italian and Spanish customs with them. It’s a tragedy about a crime of passion, all shot outside of a film studio, without big stars or glamorous trappings.

Toni

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1040

1935 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 84 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 25, 2020 / 39.95

Starring: Charles Blavette, Celia Montalvan, Édouard Delmont, Max Dalban, Jenny Hélia, Michel Kovachevitch, Andrex.

Cinematography: Claude Renoir

Film Editors: Suzanne de Troeye, Marguerite Renoir

Original Music: Paul Bozzi

Written by Jean Renoir from material by Jacques Levert

Produced by Marcel Pagnol

Directed by Jean Renoir

We’re told that in 1933 Jean Renoir was stinging from some pictures that didn’t go over well with the public, including the classic comedy-drama Boudou Saved from Drowning.

We can depend on H.G. Clouzot to find people at their most desperate, at their worst. His updated adaptation of Manon Lescaut dissects the trauma of amour fou And the hypocrisy, opportunism and political horror of postwar France. Resistance fighter Michel Auclair and provincial tart Cécile Aubrey are lovers caught in a web of vice and treachery, much of it of their own making. Their desperate escape takes them to an inhuman landscape devoid of mercy. Clouzot may pity these characters, but he sure doesn’t give them a break.

Manon

Blu-ray

Arrow Academy

1949 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 105 min. / Street Date February 25, 2020 / Available from Arrow Academy 39.95

Starring: Serge Reggiani, Michel Auclair, Cécile Aubry, Andrex, Raymond Souplex, André Valmy, Henri Vilbert, Héléna Manson, Dora Doll, Robert Dalban.

Cinematography: Armand Thirard

Film Editor: Monique Kirsanoff

Production designer: Max Douy

Original Music: Paul Misraki

Written by Jean Ferry, Henri-Georges Clouzot from the...