MALCOLM GETS PANNED
Film critic Derek Malcolm has died aged 91. In his youth he showed enthusiasm for both cinema and horse racing, and the latter coloured his early career more prominently as an amateur jockey and horse racing columnist for The Guardian. He stuck with The Guardian when taking up the film critic’s mantle, and quickly developed a reputation as one of the best in his field and a passionate defender of the artform against Mary Whitehouse’s stuffed shirts.
His own backstory was worthy of a 5-star review. 15 years before he was born, his father, British Army officer Douglas Malcolm, caught wind that his wife Dorothy was having an affair with a self-styled Russian nobleman. His father shot the Russian four times and was acquitted in what is believed to be the first crime of passion case in British courts. Malcolm learned of this sordid bit of family history as a schoolboy and later chronicled it in 2003 autobiography Family Secrets.
Malcolm had been increasingly frail in recent years, and was picked by Here’s Who You Could Have Won and Dead and Deader V: Carrion My Wayward Son.
Derek Malcolm
12 May 1932 – 15 July 2023, aged 91
2 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀💀 5 POINTS)