Made in 1975 and directed by Paul Verhoeven, Katie Tippel ("Katie the Streetwalker") is a handsome period drama set in 19th-century Holland, based on a true story. The second eldest daughter in a poor, Friesland family who move to Amsterdam, Katie (Monique Van de Ven) must find whatever work is going to make ends meet. She has already learnt to have no faith in her weak father. Now, as she enters a succession of jobs in which she experiences both exploitation and sexual harassment, she learns that men want her only for one thing. Duly, at the behest of her own mother, she enters into prostitution. However, when she becomes model to an artist, she is finally able to escape the poverty trap and ascend the social ladder, particularly when banker Hugo (Rutger Hauer) takes her as his lover. All this is set against a backdrop of social foment as the workers' impatience at poor social conditions increases.

Although director Verhoeven, as well as Hauer and cinematographer Jan De Bont eventually became involved in mainstream American movies, Katie Tippel is very much of the European school of filmmaking: episodic and harsh in its depiction of everyday poverty. The dead puppy at the beginning definitely marks it out as being contrary to Hollywood's near-zero canine mortality rate. The sexual scenes are graphic to the point of gratuitousness but always grimly non-titillating. Budgetary limits cramp some of the mass street scenes, but generally the film is beautifully shot and ageless in feel. A far cry, certainly, from Showgirls, for which Verhoeven was later responsible. --David Stubbs

The fact that John Thaw was able to make his eponymous character in Kavanagh QC stand out as a unique personality distinct from the superficially similar Inspector Morse says much about his understated skills as an actor. Thaw brought his trademark mixture of curmudgeonly belligerence and gruff sensitivity to Kavanagh, but the barrister--who first appeared on our screens in 1995 while the Oxford detective was still alive and kicking--is no polished-up Morse. He is far worldlier, is married and has a family. And although he is often troubled by his cases, he is never afraid to play the system. He knows that there are devious, even superficial lawyers, some of them in his own chambers, who he must face across the courtroom, but he acknowledges them as an unavoidable aspect of the world in which he works.

The plots are often convoluted, but Kavanagh's wielding of the trusty sword of truth is always irresistible, particularly when the case involves some kind of high-level government aberration. "The End of Law" is a case in point; a particularly nasty tale about an unexceptional businessman framed for a murder which covers up an unpleasant security scandal. It's dark and dirty and full of troubling compromises. In the end, as with most of his cases, Kavanagh's craggy features convey a subtle hint of the sourness which comes with his chosen territory. --Piers Ford