Movie review – “Journey Out of Darkness” (1967) *

Starts with a spear duel between two aboriginals – exciting except one is played by Kamahl. Then we meet an aboriginal black tracker played by Ed Devereux in black make up – very funny though not as funny as his blackfella voice. (To make it worse there are some genuine aboriginal actors playing his family).

American Konrad Matthaei plays a new police officer from Melbourne, a stuffed shirt who has come on special assignment – to arrest an aboriginal who has committed a tribal killing that the experienced local copper has let slide. Matthaei goes with Devereaux to arrest Kamahl – it’s a long ride there. Apart from the cast (Matthaei is wooden as well), the film’s main problem is structural – there is no urgency in the trip and not much interesting happens on the way.

The two police find the tribe, there’s a corroborree where Devereaux gets the bone pointed at him, Kamahl gives himself up to avoid trouble, they go back but are followed by the aborigines. evereaux feels the call of the wild, so to speak but all the while Matthaei is priggish and not at all understanding. Then Devereaux winds up dead, the horses are run off, Matthaei figures out it’s a trap so that he will die in the desert not with a spear in his back; they wind up staggering through the desert, Matthaei goes a bit funny in the head and chats away to Kamahl who can’t speak English, then he hallucinates. But Kamahl goes to get the experienced sergeant (Ron Morse) in time to rescue Matthaei – and Matthaei escorts Kamahl back to Melbourne, determined to show head office that we shouldn’t convict Kamahl because “it’s our law not theirs,” etc, etc. Is that the job of a policeman?

Anyway, muddled liberalism isn’t the worst fault of this dull film, which after the giggles from seeing Devereaux subside, just becomes boring. There are some pretty shots of the outback and a neat match cut from Matthaei digging into the ground to the pouring of a beer in town.

Movie review – “3:10 to Yuma” (2007) ***

Entertaining remake which doesn’t quite get there but is worth watching. Russell Crowe is terrific in a marvellous role as the outlaw, a charming killer who is ruthless but has a soft side, and most of the tension in the film comes from guessing which way he’s going to turn. There’s also a shooting gallery plot with the gang escorting Crowe to justice being knocked off one by one. Christian Bale is good but perhaps a bit too intense to play the Everyman role – but I guess they didn’t want an Everyman (although isn’t that the point of the character – he’s the one you relate to?)

The supporting cast is very strong – the character of Bale’s son is irritating but he gets better and the actor playing him is fine; Peter Fonda is surprisingly good as a grizzled prick of a cop (it’s not surprising Fonda gives a good performance, just that he rarely plays this type of role); but all the actors put in good performances – it helps they are given a bit of light and shade to work with, no one is all good or all evil, motivations are clear and understandable.

 The sequence in the railroad area with Luke Wilson episode is a bridge too far, and the ending is confusing - I sort of get it, but its muddled. Ben Foster is excellent as the latest in a long line of subliminal gay cowboys.

Movie review – “Kangaroo” (1952) **1/2

After WW2, Hollywood made a number of films overseas, partly to take advantage of audience’s desire for location photography and new settings, partly to use funds frozen by currency restrictions. So film crews set forth from Los Angeles and criss crossed the globe; inevitably they set their eye Down Under. The resulting film was a big budgeted failure which doesn’t seem to be remembered with too much fondness. I have to say, though, I quite enjoyed it.

I think the main problem was it had a sort of melodramatic plot that audiences enjoyed in the 30s but didn't hold up as well after the war (rogues pretending to be someone’s long lost son, drunken fathers, a romance interrupted by fear of incest, etc).

Also the story is flawed – it gets off to a good start, with Peter Lawford and Richard Boone doing a con on Finlay Currie – but the stakes of that con aren’t very high (they should have had Lawford pretend to be Currie’s son from the outset, and have a police officer from Sydney come to track them down, or something – when the deception is revealed it doesn’t seem to mean much).

Things slow down during the middle with far too many tracking shots of cattle in swirling dust and Charles Tingwell’s ne’er-do-well, who you think is going to be this villain or wild-card element, is under-used. Oh, and the finale is a bit rushed, too, with O’Hara just tending Lawford in bed.

There is much to enjoy, though: colour photography, location work around Port Augusta, Lewis Milestone’s direction including his tracking shots (even though Milestone professed to dislike the result), Richard Boone’s excellent performance as a smooth-talking villain (ruthless but not unsympathetic), Maureen O’Hara doing her feisty-big-breasted-farmer’s-daughter-who-just-needs-taming routine, the opening credit sequence where you get your Aussie fix straight away by having (a) kangaroos hop around a homestead (b) Maureen O’Hara smile at a cockatoo (c) Maureen O’Hara chat with Chips Rafferty); a dust storm sequence where Lawford rescues Boone from a windmill, and an exciting whip duel between Lawford and Boone at the end.

Peter Lawford, while being a handsome OK actor with an interesting private life, lacks in the charisma department (he has a wishy washy character – kind of a scamp but not really, who goes along with what Richard Boone suggests – but someone like Bill Holden or Clarke Gable could have made it work) So a half-success... but not the dud history seems to have consigned it.

NB Apparently the film is in the public domain - it's downloadable here.

Dorothy Malone

Came across this interesting interview on the net with Dorothy Malone. Always had a soft spot for Malone since I saw her in Written on the Wind. A stunning, stunning girl, she specialised in sexually aggressive females: pretty much everything I’ve seen her in she was on the make for some guy, including Written on the Wind, The Big Sleep (a lovely little scene), Battle Cry, her unbilled cameo in Fate is the Hunter. Of course there are exceptions, such as Beach Party and the Fast and the Furious. She never quite became a star, despite being in some popular films – maybe 50s audiences/executives liked their women stars to come across as dumber (Monroe) or classier (Hepburn). But she lasted a long time and it was terrific to see her pop up in Basic Instinct.

Movie review – “Let George Do It” (1938) **1/2

George Wallace was a popular Australian vaudevillian who was probably second to only Bert Bailey as a box office star in Australia in the 1930s. He made three films for Frank Thring at Efftee, all of which were very stilted, but later made two better ones for Ken G Hall at Cinesound of which this was the first.

Like Wallace’s Efftee films, this leans heavily on Wallace’s stage background for material: after a (very funny) gag involving a “wake up device”, there’s a scene where Wallace sings a song with Joe Valli which seems like it comes straight from one of his shows, including Wallace doing his trademark fall-on-his ear. Then there’s a long sequence where Wallace interrupts a stage performance by a magician (Alec Kellaway, who usually played comic relief, here is more of a straight man) and does an entire routine for a crowd, including gags and tap dancing. 

But then the story kicks in and it turns into a movie: Wallace, feeling miserable, tries to get a gangster to kill him but can’t afford it, so he offers to give the gangsters his inheritance instead. The gangsters agree, thinking the whole thing’s a joke – but the next day Wallace inherits 30,000 pounds.

There are still Wallace set pieces but they are integrated in the plot i.e. a wrestling scene with a gangster that enables him to escape. Strong support cast, including ever reliable boozy Scot Joe Valli and chubby Letty Creyton as a girl with a yen for George. The last ten minutes or so consists of an exciting and well-done chase, including a long boat sequence on Sydney Harbour – compared to other sequences, this is pure cinema. It’s also an example of the structural skill Frank Harvey brought to Cinesound – there’s a “ticking clock” with Wallace having to sign the will within a certain time or he’ll lose the money.

The version of this film I saw at the NFSA only went for 50 minutes- apparently the proper time is 75 minutes but I couldn’t tell that I’d missed anything: maybe there was more Gwen Munro, the pretty ingénue who pops up at the beginning and the end and has nothing to do (she seems to have a boyfriend at the end about whom we know nothing)

Movie review – “Prince of Darkness” (1987) **

John Carpenter licked his wounds following the box office failure of Big Trouble in Little China with this lower budgeted horror film. It was a return to profitability if not quality; it’s not one of Carpenter’s best efforts. The story isn’t much - weird stuff to do with the devil, a bunch of people (some of them not very good actors) are holed up at a small location (Carpenter once pointed out that the plots of his films tended to be either journeys or sieges).

I enjoyed Jameson Parker on Simon and Simon but he’s a bit stiff as the hero here – wearing a John Carpenter moustache. The female leads are poor (the final sacrifice should be moving but it isn’t), though Donald Pleasance and Victor Wong add some old school weirdness. The music score is one of Carpenter’s best. The commentary track on the DVD is between Carpenter and, bizarrely, one of the minor members of the cast – but that member isn’t a bad chatter and his presence obviously relaxes Carpenter.

OK just to think about it:

Dark Star – journey but in a small area so could also be a siege
Assault on Precinct 13 – siege
Halloween – elements of siege
Elvis – journey (but that’s more metaphorical)
The Fog – siege
Escape from New York – journey
The Thing – siege
Christine – neither
Starman – journey
Big Trouble in Little China – journey
Prince of Darkness – siege
They Live – journey maybe?
In the Mouth of Madness – journey maybe?
Memoirs of an Invisible Man - journey
Vampires – turns into siege
Ghosts of Mars –journey that turns into a siege

Movie review – “The Power and the Glory” (1941) **1/2

Little known Australian film, remembered if at all because of an early appearance by Peter Finch. It was one of two dramatic features directed by Noel Monkman, who became well known as an underwater photographer, it's actually a lot of fun.

It is set just prior to World War Two and starts with a bunch of Nazis (including Sydney Wheeler and Eric Forty Thousand Horsemen Reiman) sitting around planning world domination rather in the style of old Monogram Picture with Bela Lugosi. (Wheeler actually says “nothing stands in the way of world domination by Nazi Germany” and “I have no conscience but Germany”, Reiman says “The new Germany will never rise except by blood and iron”, etc, etc).

They’ve developed a nasty nerve gas – a Czech scientist (Lou Vernon) and his pretty daughter (Katrin Rosselle), who is actually working on a new fuel, but the gas is a side effect. The scientist doesn’t want to use his invention for evil but he’s threatened with a concentration camp; he destroys his lab and manages to escape with his daughter – but is then recaptured. We meet two members of the secret service who are in a British café – when another man is arrested the two of them flee. They trick a passing German car into stopping and knock them out – to discover the scientist and daughter in the back seat, prisoners. They take the Germans uniforms and drive the prisoners to the airport and manage to escape in a plane. The scientists go to Australia with one of the agents but the Nazis find out about it and decide to track him there.

The scientist starts working for the Australian air force – and Peter Finch comes into the film as a pilot. Eric Reiman arrives in Australia and meets up with Australian fifth columnists who are planning sabotage on planes – Finch’s ends up crashing and he winds up in hospital. By this stage the war has started and there’s a scene where Reiman and the fifth columnist (John Fernside) looks at some Aussie soldiers marching past; Reiman says “we did not expect the enthusiasm of the dominions” for the war, Fernside says he’s been to Australia for a number of years and still doesn’t understand them, adding that “you expect from their interest in sport that nothing else matters but in war the greater the danger the harder they fought”.

Finch and his friend Eric Bush visit the doctor and his daughter in their rural hideaway, where they are looked after by a comic Chinaman; Bush is keen on the daughter. Then the fifth columnists and Reiman are sitting around waiting for their spy to come alone – it’s Peter Finch! Reiman slaps him in the face for slack effort so Finch gives a speech explaining his history.

Finch tells the Germans where to find the scientist and they duly rock up and start torturing to find the formula. The Germans are about to take the scientist and daughter back but Joe Vallie manages to sneak off and inform the authorities. Bush goes over there along with Finch (NB no one knows Finch’s involvement yet). Bush and some of the others rescue Vernon but Finch’s treachery enables the Germans to take off with the formula. Bush hops in a plane and flies after him – there is a dog fight, Bush manages to shoot down Finch and Reiman, and destroy a German U Boat.

It’s glorious over the top fun with some top notch Nazi acting from Wheeler and Reiman and plenty of pace and silly action – last minute escapes, car crashes, comic relief from a wacky Chinaman and Scot (Joe Valli), fifth columnists who press a button in their living room making a painting revolve around to reveal a picture of Hitler. It has faults - silliness of course, but more importantly we dont' know who our main hero is until the film is more than half over and when we do know who it is, Bush isn't very charismatic - but is fun.

Monkman flashes his directorial muscles every now and then: a tracking shot with various Germans talking in a restaurant. And he keeps things at a fast, skilled pace – it was a shame he didn’t do more movies as a director. I know you can say that about a lot of Aussie filmmakers but in his case it’s especially true.

Movie review – “Dust in the Sun” (1958) ** (warning: spoilers)

Lee Robinson and Chips Rafferty made a string of films in the 50s based on two pillars: Rafferty’s screen presence and exotic locations. This formula served them well for three hits, but then bizarrely they dropped it for this film, their fourth. Rafferty elected not to star, being replaced by the not-very-well-known Ken Wayne (England’s Jill Adams was imported to play the female lead but she wasn’t very well known either). Also, while there is location photography it’s in black and white (why??) and the locations aren’t really that spectacular.

The film starts with a bang – a long sequence without dialogue where policeman Ken Wayne is escorting prisoner Robert Tudawali through the outback when they are attacked by a tribe of aboriginals; Wayne is injured by Tudawali fights them off. Tudawali takes Wayne to a homestead where there is a bit of a cross section of odd types – the nice “squatter’s daughter” type daughter (Maureen Lanagan) of a nasty foreman (Jack Hume), the nasty wife (Jill Adams) of a farmer (James Forest). But then it gets bogged down in melodrama at the homestead – Wayne falls for Lanagan, which annoys her father; Adams gets frustrated when she finds out her husband has arranged a contract which means they’re stuck out in the bush another two years, so she lets Tudawali free. The aborigines gunning for Tudawali attack one night but are fought off. Then Adams tries to run away and almost dies, and you start to think “what is this film actually about? Tudawali or Adams?”

Then Adams is killed and everyone thinks it’s Tudawali – but then Tudawali turns up dead. The killer of Adams turns out to be the local aboriginal farm worker Spider (Henry Murdoch) who killed Adams because he thought it was helping Forest. Wayne chases down Murdoch, who throws himself off a cliff. Then he rides off into the sunset, despite the pleading eyes of Lanagan. “I’m a policeman – it’s a wanderer’s life” he says, though the real reason is he’s probably got a few girls stashed in various homesteads around the countryside. Or a raving queen. But at least Lanagan’s got Forest there – he gives her a look as if to indicate “well, I’m a widower now, why wait?”

Ken Wayne has a relaxed masculine presence and excellent speaking voice, but he’s not a star – he’s a second lead; he definitely doesn’t have the looks of a Charles Tingwell and his chemistry with the pretty Lanagan (another Robinson discovery) is poor. Robinson’s handling of the dramatic stuff is better than it was in King of the Coral Sea and the film has a strong story thanks to Cleary’s original novel. But it feels like the stuff of a telemovie – it lacks the big emotional stakes or production value to be a film.

It’s also not very PC. While Tudawali’s character is brave and smart, there is a horrible scene where Wayne and Adams argue over Wayne having to take Tudawali for a walk like he’s a dog (“he needs his exercise”); after Tudawali escapes Wayne complains that somebody “let him out of the shed” and Tudawali is first scene with a chain around his neck. Actually, thinking about it, the film fits into the white man’s burden genre of adventure filmmaking of 50s British cinema (eg Where Vultures Fly), with its diligent no-nonsense public servant hero trying to do his best amongst troublesome natives and snarly whites. Like Jedda, the guilty black man throws himself off a cliff at the end (though unlike Jedda it doesn’t mean that much because we never got to know Spider that well).

Movie review – “Jane Austen Book Club” (2008) **1/2

Good natured “chatty women” movie which passes the time well enough, even though I’m not really the demographic. It has the benefit of an outstanding cast all in good form. Some of this is “yeah, yeah, seen it before” eg Jimmy Smits dumping poor old Amy Brennan, pushing forward the idea that if your partner reads Jane Austen he will really like it – but it throws in the occasional surprise, like Emily Blunt’s mean treatment of her jock husband is shown to be mean. The Maria Bello romance plot is a bit of a one-note samba. Solid acting across the board and the genuine rejoicing in literature and community make this a hard film to dislike.

Movie review – “Black Snake Moan” (2006) ***

The sort of movie with a central concept so outrageous you can’t imagine it being made in the 80s or 90s; maybe the 70s, when anything went. A black man who chains up a white nympho in order to teach her a lesson and it works. Cripes, imagine getting that past the AFC. Anyway, wouldn’t you know it, but it works – at first anyway. The Southern atmosphere is rich, the dialogue flowing, and there are two electrifying performances from Christina Ricci and Samuel L Jackson (who displays an unexpected string to his bow by singing very well). The whole concept is nutty but Craig Brewer pulls it off – maybe it was a bit rough Jackson didn’t seek medical help from Ricci before he knows she’s out of the woods (I get the chaining her up bit but she’s very sick at first and he’s not a doctor). After a while though the film runs out of ideas and bravery – it’s just Ricci hanging out with Sam, and an overlong scene playing blues. When Justin Timberlake (surprisingly good) comes back you think fireworks are going to erupt but they don’t, really. Still, you’ve got to admit – it keeps you guessing all the way up til the end.

Book review – “McQueen” by Chris Sanford

It’s always a bit disappointing to find out that an actor you admire was a real wanker – but in Steve McQueen’s case it doesn’t come as a surprise. McQueen was always so good at being too cool for school on screen you couldn’t help but suspect he was like that in real life. And its all too plausible to that McQueen’s characters got up to some of the less pleasant things McQueen got up to – unprofessional attitudes during filming, smacking his wife around, difficulties with drug and alcohol, pretension.

Like a movie character, McQueen could blame a lot of his problems on a troubled upbringing – prostitute mother, absent father, juvenile delinquency. After service in the marines he wound up in New York and started studying acting. His great talent soon became apparent, as did his tendency towards wankerdom. He benefited from marriage to his first wife Nellie, who seems to have been the great love of his life (even though he cheated on her with great and constant enthusiasm). Nellie gave him tremendous emotional, career and financial support; eventually McQueen started to get regular work (like Paul Newman and Robert Redford, anthology television was a rich source of roles for him), becoming a star with Wanted: Dead or Alive.

Few movie stars had better instincts for what worked than McQueen – he was a rare actor who constantly asked for less lines, who knew he could say it better with looks. He had a real knack for picking commercial vehicles, too – something like The Thomas Crown Affair and Towering Inferno might seem an obvious hit, but The Sand Pebbles or Bullitt were not without risk (or maybe tastes have just changed a lot). And he had a skill about what films to avoid – when McQueen was quiet through the 70s, you get the feeling he didn’t really miss much (films offered included Gable and Lombard). It was only towards the end of the 70s his magic touch deserted him.

This is a well-researched, entertaining biography which certainly doesn’t hide the faults of its subject – or stint on praise. It’s written in a flowing, showy style that seems to be favoured by British biographers, but you get used to it (although at times you do find yourself muttering “Ok, calm down, and get on with it). There are some hilarious bits – McQueen proposed marriage to Ali MacGraw by presenting her with a pre-nup, McQueen secretly hoped to get a foursome with his wives. Surprisingly touching, too, at the end with McQueen’s battle against cancer (where he showed considerable bravery), and his embracing of God. Great actor. Great wanker.

Movie review – “The Haunted Strangler” (1958) ***

The 50s were quieter for Boris Karloff when it came to horror films but things started heating up towards the end of the decade. This was one of two he made in Britain with director Robert Day. It’s a very sensible horror film, if that makes sense – it is well structured, has a strong support cast, the story proceeds logically, there is a historical background and impressive production design.

It lacks a little delirious magic of the classics but it was enjoyable and Karloff delivers a strong performance: he's a politically active novelist in 19th century England who becomes convinced a man executed for committing a series of crimes was in fact innocent. During the investigation he seems to become possessed by the man and starts killing - Karloff twists up his face and becomes an entirely separate character.

His fans may throw bricks at me but I don't think Karloff was that great an actor - his lumbering delivery here means the dialogue takes a while to get across - but he had tremendous presence and was a genuine star. He's the best reason to see this - that and the production design.

Adding to the fun are some scenes at a dancing hall, Anthony Dawson as a nasty looking detective, and Jean Kent hamming it up. The juveniles are dull (surprise). Well directed by Robert Day, whose version of She I always liked.

Movie review - "Darker Than Amber" (1970) **

Another ‘near-miss’ film from a time when Rod Taylor seemed to be making a habit out them. The star should have been ideal as Travis McGee, but neither his performance nor the film came together. Rod wears a series of ridiculous looking tight shorts and outrageous 70s suits which make the character come across as unintentionally funny. A more serious problem is that there was not enough story in the original novel to justify a feature film without some major changes; the film’s script unfortunately follows the novel’s story too closely, leading to a middle section where nothing much happens. On the positive side, Robert Clouse’s direction is visually interesting, Suzy Kendall is beautiful and Will Smith makes a terrifying villain. But ultimately the film fails to work.

Movie review - "The Train Robbers" (1973) **1/2

Unpretentious and not un-entertaining, especially for John Wayne fans, but lacks excitement and originality. Writer-director Burt Kennedy’s fondness for scenes involving swirling clouds of dust and long rambling dialogues act as a kind of narcotic for the viewer: enjoyable but cause the audience to watch with a sense of detachment.

Movie review - "Trader Horn" (1973) **

No classic but is not that bad, being cheery enough entertainment in an afternoon-matinee-serial kind of way which young children should enjoy. The main problem is that the cutting between the new, studio-based footage and the old, location-based King Solomon’s Mines footage is so awkward and obvious. Rod Taylor makes an ideal Trader, although his stomach is a little large for an African adventurer.

Movie review - "Marbella" (1985) **

Surprisingly entertaining heist movie, despite the awful soundtrack and the tendency to shove in as many shots of topless women as possible. The plot is quite intricate and Rod Taylor gives a nice relaxed performance. His character gets to go to bed with both Britt Ekland and a perpetually topless 18 year old (played by Emma Suarez), which is pretty good for someone who was in his fifties at the time.

Movie review - "Charles and Diana" (1982) **

A made for TV account of the then-fairtale romance which holds up surprisingly well: the scenery is pleasant, the acting fine, and the film does deal with some political matters around the wedding, such as the assassination of Lord Mountbatten and the need to produce a royal heir. Some scenes have unexpected resonance today, such as the ceaseless pursuit of Diana by the paparazzi, and a scene between Diana and her fiancee’s best friends, Andrew and Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Movie review - "Zabriskie Point" (1970) **1/2

A visually stunning, flawed, interesting period piece. Full of striking images, it never really had a story to compel large audiences, and suffers for it. It suffers, too, from the two amateur leads, though You can’t help laugh at some of the scenes but it is worth seeking out.

Movie review - "The Hell with Heroes" (1968) **

A disappointing film about fliers in post WW2 Africa. Claudia Cardinale is incredibly sexy and the setting of is an exciting one, but the film never gels. Rod Taylor’s on screen relationship with Pete Duel feels like a poor retread of the one he had with Jim Brown in Dark of the Sun and the fact that his character decides not to kill the baddie when he has the chance thirty minutes before the end of the film makes the last act feel like an anti-climax.

Rod should have been a natural in his role, and he is occasionally, but his performance is patchy and over-the-top in places (for instance on hearing Duel’s death he becomes excessively weepy). The war flashbacks using tinted stock do not work, either. Considering the cast and the subject matter, the film is an opportunity missed.

Movie review - "On the Run" (1981) *1/2

Not a terribly good film and Rod Taylor is not very convincing as a hired killer. Paul Winfield has to spend too much of the movie talking monologues to Beau Cox (admittedly Cox’s character can not speak English, but Winfield seems just silly rabbiting on). Apart from one bright moment when Rod asks Winfield to dig three graves and Winfield realises he wants to kill to Cox, generally the film feels too much like an episode of a television series, and an average one at that

Movie review - "Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy" (1981) **

Entertaining enough biopic, and not a total whitewash (for instance, it hints that JFK was not the most attentive husband). The main problem is that in this polite, glossy version of events, Jackie does not seem worthy of a three hour screen treatment: she was iconic, she set a fashion trend, but what did she do, really? Impressed the French, redecorated the White House… And? There is a fascinating story to be told about Jackie Kennedy, but it is not to be found her.

Movie review - "Dark of the Sun" (1968) ****1/2

A terrific, gripping action film that tries to deal with serious topics like the nature of violence and contains many memorable scenes. The acting is top notch: Rod Taylor’s performance as the vicious mercenary afraid of his own nature is one of the best things he ever did, an intelligent man who nonetheless embraces his “animal” side with an intensity that later repulses him.

Jim Brown is extremely likeable as his idealistic friend, as is Kenneth More as the alcoholic doctor who finds redemption and Yvette Mimieux as a shell shocked citizen caught up in war.

The film is very exciting, with the scene of the mercenaries waiting to open a time-locked safe while the Simbas are coming being particularly tense. It really looks and feels like it is taking place in Africa, and Jacques Louissier’s score one of the most memorable of any action film. It is one of the best films that Rod has ever made

Movie review - "Chuka" (1967) **1/2

Rod Taylor was at the height of his career when he made this action vehicle, which he also co-produced. It's got a good story - a sort of Beau Geste in the desert as we go through the events that led to an entire fort of US cavalry being wiped out. Taylor plays the title role, a lone cowboy who gets stuck at the fort.

Throughout the film the conscious effort behind the scenes to make something memorable is almost palpable, but is never quite clicks. The unconvincing studio setting is a major debit, and although the central idea is terrific with an inherently tense situation, there is a bewildering lack of suspense.

Rod Taylor is not well cast as a laconic, grizzled gun fighter; he is at his best when being gregarious and friendly, not as a hard-bitten loner. However, in other areas he is fine: Rod was a highly skilled on-screen fighter by this stage, and he moves in the action sequences with lightning speed. He also romances Luciana Paluzzi with tenderness and has some enjoyable banter with Ernest Bognine and James Whitmore.

Movie review - "Hotel" (1967) **1/2

A film whose main problem is the fact that its stories are not all brought together the way they were in the far more successful Airport. Another problem is the hotel itself – admittedly beautiful, there’s no escaping it is owned by a man (played by Melvyn Douglas) who does not want black people as guests, and has an elevator so dilapidated it causes the death of one of its passengers. Is it really a tragedy that such a place be shut down? But it does have advantages such as colour photography, a glossy look, and movie stars (even if mostly second-rate ones).

Movie review - "The Glass Bottom Boat" (1966) ***

A cheerful comedy where scientist Rod Taylor literally fishes Doris Day out of the water - they banter for a bit and fall in love, but things are complicated when Rod (who works for a government organisation) thinks that Doris is a spy. Frank Tashlin directs energetically, sending up the spy genre still had freshness in 1966, and every actor on the film gets into the spirit. Rod Taylor and Doris Day work well together - she's quite sexy here, wearing a mata hari outfit, and there's even a scene where she flat out tries to seduce Rod (he thinks she's a spy by then so doesn't go through with it but she's up for it, not question).

The title song is catchy, and there are some excellent performances from the support cast, including a young Dom de Luise. Amazingly, it would be the last time Rod made an out-and-out comedy for almost twenty years – a ridiculous waste considering the skill he had for the genre.

Movie review - "The Liquidator" (1966) **1/2

There are many enjoyable things about The Liquidator: the colour, Lalo Schifrin’s dynamic score, the black humour, the scenery (nicely shot by Ted Scaife), some beautiful women (Gabriella Licudi is a standout) and enjoyable villains. The script fails to build up narrative momentum by falling into two halves, one involving Bosie’s sub-contracted liquidator, the other involving a real life plot. 

Rod Taylor, looking eerily like Trevor Howard in some scenes, was perhaps the wrong actor to play Boysie Oakes; although he was an ideal action hero and good with comedy, the film probably needed someone more obviously cowardly to really work – a Peter O’Toole or a Peter Sellers. He is certainly not as well cast as James Coburn, Dean Martin or Sean Connery were in their spy films.

Aussie Ken Wayne pops up in a small role.  Written by Peter Yeldham.

Movie review - "Do Not Disturb" (1965) **

A silly inconsequential comedy in which the two stars work well together but whose story is so slight and tired the film has a great deal of trouble holding the audience’s interest. For example, the first twenty minutes of the film is devoted to gags about Doris Day having arranged to live in the country instead of the city like Rod Taylor wanted - and that’s it. There is no real reason for this film to exist except for greed; Day’s popularity had turned 20th Century-Fox into being lazy and complacent.

Movie review - "Young Cassidy" (1965) ***

Not very popular bio of Irish playwright Sean O'Casey mostly notable for Rod Taylor's performance in the lead. John Whiting’s script is intelligent but falls down in a few places: it ambles along in a this-happened-then-that-happened way without really giving a sense of what is important and why. Cassidy’s life and career is sort-of tied in with Irish developments at the time and sort-of tied in with “theatre for the people”, but it never feels focused. Also Cassidy’s climactic sacrifice at the end seems to come in a rush. On the positive side the support cast are excellent as is the period flavour. Young Cassidy lacks the spark and inspiration of a great film, but it is an intelligent, well-made one, and a reminder of what its star was capable of.

Play review - "I Killed the Count" by Alec Coppel

Popular comedy thriller which was turned into a play, book, movie and television show - chiefly, one supposes, because of its central idea: everyone confesses. There is a lot of hokiness - comic detectives, dastardly foreigners, shady pasts - but the structure is sound.

Movie review - "36 Hours" (1964) ***1/2

An exciting thriller with dense plotting and plenty of intelligent twists and turns. Characters are constantly thinking other characters will do something, then think it’s a trap, then changing or not changing so they will not think it is a trap. All the actors are first-class, particularly Rod Taylor as the (extremely sympathetic) German doctor. He is so likeable and his plan so audacious, that at times you find yourself hoping that the Germans will pull it off. The main drawback of the film is that it feels too long, going on for an extra sequence after the Normandy invasion is no longer in danger.

Movie review - "Fate is the Hunter" (1964) **1/2

An intriguing film, part-thriller, part meditation on the workings of fate. The opening sequence is tremendous, the climax exhilarating, and the film’s philosophical theme – that everything happens for a reason – sets it apart from other aeroplane movies. Glenn Ford’s protagonist seems driven as much by guilt and feelings of inadequacy as from any desire to get to the bottom of the truth.

Movie review - "Sunday in New York" (1964) ***

A cheery, likeable film set in the Hollywood-created New York of large fashionable apartments owned by swinging bachelors and visited by sassy career girls. Norman Krasna’s script is stronger with farce than in the discussions on sex, which is why the second half of the film is stronger than the first. The three leads all have their moments; Rod gives a confident, relaxed comic performance and engages in some skilful verbal fencing with Jane Fonda. However, as is common in these sort of films , the film is stolen by supporting actors – in this case Robert Culp (Fonda’s idiot-grin-hail-fellow-well-met fiancé) and Jo Morrow (Robertson’s long suffering glamorous girlfriend). Nero’s score is enchanting.

Movie review - "The VIPS" (1963) ***

An enjoyable glossy film, very much in the old-style MGM tradition. Although the Richard Burton-Liz Taylor story is most prominent and Margaret Rutherford won an Oscar for her part, the other two stories are more interesting: Orson Welles and Elsa Martinelli make an entertaining duo, and Maggie Smith and Rod Taylor are touching in their roles. Rod seems to grapple with his Australian accent at times, but he is very likeable and is particularly strong in his scenes with Smith (who steals the film).

Movie review - "A Gathering of Eagles" (1963) **

An interesting period piece about SAC in peacetime in the vein of Twelve O'Clock High. Although the film really should be about Rod Taylor’s character learning responsibility, far more time is spent on obsessive Rock Hudson and the effect his job is having on his marriage. And while Hudson and the men of SAC clearly work hard, it is difficult to be too sympathetic considering what the job is - whether an SAC commander does a good job or a bad job, either way it is not going to be good news for the audience.

Movie review - "The Birds" (1963) ****1/2

An absolute masterpiece from a master artist at the top of his game. Funny, terrifying, always gripping, it has become a deserved classic, the last Hitchcock movie undeniably to have this status. The special effects, photography and design are excellent, as are the performances (Jessica Tandy makes a slightly creepy yet sympathetic mother). It does lack the psychological depth of a film like Psycho – so what? On the film’s simplest, purest level – birds attacking humans – it is brilliant. I watched this after Torn Curtain and some late period Hitchcock’s; the difference was remarkable. The Birds is full of energy and imagination totally lacking his later films; it’s like after Marnie he gave up.

Book review - "A Man About a Dog" by Alec Coppel

Very short book (only 189 pages) that reads like a play that has been typed up – there is very little internal characterisation, lots of short chapters and most of the book his dialogue. It was turned into a play and a film (called Obsession). It's about a doctor who tries to commit the perfect murder against his adulterous wife and her lover. Things eventually come a cropper but not after a number of twists and turns, and a bright method of disposing a body. There are lots of talk along lines of "I watch a lot of thrillers and people do X".

Movie review - "Seven Seas to Calais" (1963) **

A jolly swashbuckler about the life of Sir Francis Drake with an enthusiastic Rod Taylor perhaps not entirely well cast, but he makes a solid fist of the role, and has a compelling scene where he must hang an old friend who is guilty of mutiny. The film might have been better off concentrating on one or two events in Drake’s life instead of trying to cover all the famous bits. There are a number of unintentional laughs – some of the model ships, the painful “comic” Indian interlude, the performance of Hedy Vessell – but it is all rousing with strong production values and plenty of action.

Movie review - "Colossus and the Amazon Queen" (1961) **1/2

"Peplums" were a genre of films known in English as “sword & sandal films”, where scantily clad muscly men and nubile women would fight and romance in the ancient world (Rome, Greece, etc). The word “peplum” was the name of a diminutive skirt usually worn by men in these films. Ever since Quo Vadis (1912), peplum films had been a staple of the Italian film industry, rather like the Western in America - and like the Western they enjoyed peaks and crests of popularity. 

The best-known peplum cycle started with Hercules (1957), starring American bodybuilder Steve Reeves. The film was bought for $120,000 by promoter Joe E Levine who spent several times that publicising its release in the US; to everyone’s surprise, it became a major success, grossing $20 million. A boom promptly followed: from an estimated 16 peplums made in Italy from 1952 to 1958, 42 were made from 1958 to 1959, and 200 were made from 1959 to 1964.

 Although Italy was the largest cinema market outside the USA and Italian films accounted for over half the local box-office, Italian filmmakers were increasingly aiming their movies towards the international market – and this meant international stars. By April 1961 it was estimated over 60% of the name players in Italian films were foreigners: Britons and Americans comprising 40%, Frenchmen 22% and Italians 38% (this was not limited to peplum films, but other genres as well). Hollywood actors who appeared in peplums were usually people whose careers were on the way up or on the way down: Yvonne de Carlo, Anita Ekberg, Hildegard Neff, Anne Heywood, Rossano Brazzi, Anthony Quinn, Kirk Douglas, Edmund Purdom, John Barrymore Jnr, Lex Barker, Victor Mature, and Orson Welles. Later on Cornel Wilde, Vincent Price, Jack Palance, Stewart Granger, Alan Ladd, Joan Collins, Rhonda Fleming, Debra Paget, Jeanne Crain, Jayne Mansfield, Victor Mature, Ernest Borgnine, Anthony Steele, and Keenan Wynn also starred in peplums. 

Colossus and the Amazon Queen had two American stars: first of all Rod Taylor, who was not a major name at the time but had still been in a number of big-budget studio films; and Ed Fury, a body builder turned actor who had appeared in such works as Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954) and Wild Women of Wongo (1958). 

The film tells the story of two Trojan War veterans, the fast-talking Pirro (Taylor) and the muscular Glauco (Fury), recruited by two tradesmen to guard the cargo of a ship headed for a secret island destination. The “cargo” turns out to be the crew (including Pirro and Glauco), who have been sold into slavery to the Amazons, a civilisation where the women have the military and political power and the men worry about housework and what they are going to wear. Pirro and Glauco become romantically involved with two women who are each vying to be the next Queen of the Amazons; they end up helping the Amazons fight off some pirates and all ends happily. 

The film is certainly cheesy and amateurish, with some shocking continuity and a central thesis that many will find annoying (i.e. that women, no matter how strong and independent, can’t help liking those cute guys). But it is all good natured, the role reversing gags give the film a lot of funny, albeit politically incorrect, humour – it is hard to believe this was ever a drama - and the cast really embrace the spirit of it all. Rod himself is in top form as the smart-aleck Piro; it is a shame he could not have played more parts along this line in Hollywood for he had a gift for broad comedy.

Movie review - "101 Dalmatians" (1961) ****1/2

Dodie Smith was a successful West End playwright who had been given a dalmatian puppy as a gift in 1934; Smith named the puppy Pongo, and he was the first of what would be seven dalmatians. During the late 1930s Smith moved to Hollywood to write movies; Pongo died there, but he had fathered a number of successors, including Folly and Buzz, who parented 15 puppies of which they kept one, Dandy. Smith and her husband Alec were so devoted to their dogs one of the reasons they delayed returning to England was the thought of putting their dogs through quarantine. (When Smith did return home in 1953, she visited the dogs in quarantine every day and paid for extra heat and meat rations.) Smith’s plays had become temporarily out of fashion in the post-war world and in Christmas 1955 she decided to write The Hundred and One Dalmatians.

The story revolves around Pongo, a dalmatian who not only arranges to marry to the female of his choice, Perdita, but for his master, Roger Radcliff, to marry Perdita's pretty mistress, Anita. Perdita soon produces 15 puppies, which attracts the attention of the evil Cruella De Ville who wants to use them to make a dalmatian fur coat. (This idea came from a comment made to Smith by actress Joyce Kennedy about a dalmatian: “he would make a nice fur coat.”) The book was an instant commercial and critical success on its publication in 1956, and Disney bought the film rights.

Walt Disney had been making animated feature films since Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937) but by the 1950s, he was finding his theme parks, television shows, and live action features more lucrative and less stressful. His most recent animated feature, Sleeping Beauty (1959) had been a financial disappointment on its release, failing to cover its $6 million cost on first run. However, animation was Disney’s passion and he decided to make a film of 101 Dalmatians.

The film represented something of a departure from previous Disney animated features. Not only was it not based on a fairytale, it would be the first animated Disney feature to have a screenplay rather than just storyboards, and the first animated feature to solely use the Xerox process for transferring the animators' drawings to cells. (Prior to this, each one of the animators' drawings had to be hand-traced in ink onto a cell.) The new process sped up production greatly – something especially useful for a film that featured so many spotted dogs.[ Many animators preferred the new process because the line the audience saw on the screen was the one they had actually drawn, rather than an inker’s approximation of it. 101 Dalmatians was made at a reported cost of $4 million over three years, using some 150 artists.

The film is joyful and quite brilliant, enjoyable from start to finish. Scary, exciting and funny, it was the last uncontested animated classic made in Disney’s lifetime.

Movie review - "The Time Machine" (1960) ****

A deserved classic, one that looks even better over the years. The time machine is a marvellous Victorian invention, backed up by imaginative special effects and photography. A captivating feeling of melancholy and loss permeates the film, giving it unexpected power (the sequence in 1966 with the world on the verge of World War Three is particularly potent). 

Support performances are fine (Yvette Mimieux is lovely), with intelligent directing and scripting – though it does have to deal a few logic problems faced by most time travel films. (For instance, one can not help but wonder what sort of world Rod Taylor’s character goes off to join at the end of the film - now that he has taken away the Eloi’s food supply and re-introduced them to violence!) 

A great deal of the success of the film comes from Rod Taylor’s performance: he is believable both as a man of thought and a man of action – as Rod himself put it, a combination of “highly intellectual” and “ballsiness”, someone capable of inventing a time machine, and beating up Morlocks. He acts with energy, sensitivity and complete conviction, being particularly strong in his scenes with Mimieux and Alan Young.

TV review - "Hellinger's Law" (1980) **

A first-rate pilot for a TV series that never eventuated. It was a vehicle for Telly Savalas, who played Philadelphia crime lawyer Nick Hellinger. In the pilot, Hellinger goes to Houston to defend an accountant accused of murdering a local TV reporter; the accountant turns out to be an undercover man for the Justice Department. There are excellent performances, sparkling dialogue and a strong story - plus Rod Taylor as a Texas mafioso!

Movie review - "World Without End" (1956) **

Writer-director Edward Bernds was invited to make this film by Richard Heermance, a producer who wanted to use some stock footage from an earlier science fiction film, Flight to Mars (1951). Armed with the concept of astronauts arriving on a strange planet, Bernds says he was inspired by a non-fiction Arthur C Clarke book on science which mentioned the Einstein theory that if you move fast enough, time slows down, and if you approach the speed of light, time stands still. Bernds constructed a story about four astronauts on the first space rocket to Mars who are accidentally transported 522 years into the future. (As Bernds pointed out to Tom Weaver later, this was well before Planet of the Apes (1968) and The Twilight Zone (1959-64); however it was well after HG Wells’ novel, The Time Machine.) The astronauts discover that Earth has become a bleak world inhabited by mutants and giant spiders; the remnants of the human race live underground, where the women are voluptuous and smart but the men are withered and weak. The astronauts help the humans revive and take on the mutants.

Bernds admitted having read The Time Machine but denied there were any similarities between Welles’ book and World Without End – which seems odd since both feature time travel, hopeless impotent humans of the future under the thumb of mutants, time travellers fighting the mutants, and a girl of the future being attracted to a virile time traveller (in the film she is called “Deena” – in Wells’ book, “Weena”). Plagiarised or not, the story of World Without End is the film’s greatest strength; the acting is patchy, but serviceable

Originally titled Flight to the Future, the film started shooting on July 21, 1955. Although the budget was low, it did extend to include Technicolour and CinemaScope. Bernds wanted Sterling Hayden or Frank Lovejoy for the lead but Heermance insisted on the cheaper Hugh Marlowe (from All About Eve (1950)) instead. The other astronauts were played by Nelson Leigh, Chris Dark and Rod Taylor.

Bernds was not happy with Marlowe’s performance or his attitude on set:

He was not prepared, he didn’t know his lines, and that’s unforgivable. He was lazy. We spent a lot of time out on location – hot, dusty, disagreeable old Iverson’s Ranch – and, as you remember the picture, they were loaded down with packs and weapons and things like that. Between takes Marlowe would chuck the pack, put his weapon down, find shade somewhere. Eventually we’d have to go send for him, find him. Then it took time to get the pack on again. This was unpardonable – the minutes that you lose are precious. Then when he’d get on set he frequently didn’t know his lines, he’d blow scenes. And most of all he didn’t generate the strength that I wanted…

When an actor behaves like that, he tends to infect the others. Chris Dark was like a spoiled kid: if Hugh Marlowe could goof off and sit in the shade and forget where he put his pack so the prop man had to find it, why, he tended to do the same thing. Rod Taylor was all right, he was very new to the business and anxious to please. Nelson Leigh was an old pro.

Bernds thought Heermance was too concerned with cost, forcing him to compromise on the quality of the special effects. An example of the former was the giant spiders used in the film. Bernds says the spiders had legs which were operated by selsyn motors, but since the motors did not work all the time the actors had to “provide most of the struggle” in their scenes with the spiders.

The art director was Alberto Vargas, who had a notable career as an illustrator of women for Esquire and Playboy magazines. Incidentally, Sam Peckinpah worked as a dialogue director, and future Oscar-winning producer Walter Mirisch was an executive at Allied Artists at the time.

Movie review - "Top Gun" (1955) **

An original Western feature from producer Edward Small, a prolific filmmaker then making low-budget features under a deal with United Artists. “B” movies – movies made to support a larger budgeted feature on a double bill - were being phased out by major studios during the 1950s as television made inroads into their traditional market, but there was still enough demand at that stage to ensure some filmmakers such as Small could make a living from them.

Sterling Hayden stars here as a gunslinger who returns to his old home town to warn them of an impending attack by a gang of outlaws. Rod Taylor has a small but showy part as a cocky young cowboy who repeatedly challenges Hayden to a shoot out. His performance is a bit amateurish, with the actor clearly grappling with his cowboy accent and a tendency to over-act, but his enthusiasm is sweet to see and the film - which seems to owe more than a little to High Noon (1951) – quite watchable.

Movie review - "Giant" (1956) ***

Spanning twenty-five years, Giant centres around the life and times of old-style Texan rancher Bick Benedict (Rock Hudson), in particular his marriage to northerner Leslie (Elizabeth Taylor) and rivalry with his former ranch hand Jett Rink (James Dean). It's a sprawling epic that, for all its carefully composed shots of oil wells, funerals and cattle, is most effective in its smaller moments: Jane Withers meeting Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean making a cup of tea, Hudson losing a fist fight, and so on.

The Texans in this are quite obnoxious - proud, loud and dumb, earning far too much money from little work (i.e. oil). Dennis Hopper and Carroll Baker impress as Taylor and Hudson's chiildren; Taylor and Hudson are very effective, as is James Dean (who in all honesty is better than Alan Ladd - George Stevens' original choice - would have been).

Movie review - Ladd #31 - "Hell on Frisco Bay" (1955) ***1/2

A star vehicle for Alan Ladd, the second film for Ladd’s own production company, Jaguar, under its deal with Warner Brothers. Jaguar had bought the rights to William McGivern’s novel “The Darkest Hour”, about a cop who is released from San Quentin five years after being falsely convicted of manslaughter. (McGivern also wrote the novels on which the films The Big Heat (1953) and Rogue Cop (1954) were based. Scripts for both those films were written by Sydney Boehm, who co-wrote Hell on Frisco Bay.)

It's one of the better films Ladd made for Jaguar , helped considerably by the addition of some first rate support, notably Edward G Robinson, William Demarest, Paul Stewart and Joanna Dru, and a decent story. It’s very well tailored for Ladd’s image: he treats a woman with disdain (Dru, as his ex-wife), he has a loyal pal (Demarest), has a scene where he’s nice to a little kid, and gets to act tough against an imposing bad guy (Robinson) and his flunkies.

There's also an impressive array of support characters: not just gangster Robinson, but Robinson’s dopey nephew and religious wife; Robinson’s henchman who is in love with a former star (Fay Wray!); the tough guy who won’t turn stool pigeon because of his kid and the kid; a corrupt copper.

Australia’s own Rodney Taylor (as he was then billed) plays a henchman of Edward G Robinson who is chased down by Ladd – Ladd gets to beat him up (or rather his stunt double) and he also has a scene with Robinson. He’s good too – the American accent wasn’t completely there at this stage, but he’s a good looking, charismatic performer. Another added attraction if Dru singing (or miming) to two classic songs in the Warner Bros catalogue, ‘It Had to Be You’ and ‘The Very Thought of You’.

This is as good as some of the stuff Ladd made during his Paramount heyday – indeed, it’s a shame at times its in colour instead of black and white (although the colour photography is useful for some of the brief location footage). It holds up well, particularly on television. There’s a silly moment at the end when Robinson is pointing a gun at Dru and Ladd says “you don’t have the guts to pull the trigger” - way to go gambling with your wife’s life there, Ladd – but as compensation there’s a decent fight between Ladd and Robinson’s doubles on a boat across San Francisco harbour.

Ladd had an unusual appeal – a sort of expressionless angel face, with a wonderful deep speaking voice, tight frame, tough guy disdain. With women he was take-it-or-leave-it; with guys he was tough and warm or just tough. This film earned an estimated $2 million in rentals.

Movie review - "Long John Silver" (1954) **

A fair children’s film, which has a strong story with plenty of twists and turns, but lacks a little polish and suffers from stilted scenes. Robert Newton chews the scenery in the best Newton style, but the best performance comes from George Simpson-Lytton as a religious captain. Rod Taylor really had no business playing a crazy old man, but he does his best; he later described the experience affectionately as “scrambling around the rocks giving the worst performance you’ve ever seen in your life.” He does, however get one of the film’s best scenes – stalking Jim Hawkins in a cave (although for a blind man Israel Hands is awfully successful at chasing a child around an island).

Movie review - "King of the Coral Sea" (1954) **

An adequate adventure film whose main attraction is its location photography. The story lacks excitement, and Lee Robinson’s inexperience handling drama is evident, but it is agreeable enough, with a genuine exotic flavour and an attractive lead couple in Charles Tingwell and Ilma Adey. Rod Taylor is very comfortable as the macho, two-fisted Jack Janeiro, although his part is not really necessary in the story: everything his character in the film does could have easily been done by Chips Rafferty or Tingwell’s character.

Movie review - "The Catered Affair" (1956) **1/2

An attempt to combine Father of the Bride with Marty (working class mother is determined to give her daughter a big wedding whether she likes it or not) doesn't work, chiefly because of the basic idea: it is fun to see Spencer Tracy make a goose of himself because he can afford it, but it is not fun to see Bette Davis throw away her family’s money here. 

There is also Bette Davis’ performance, which is very much an acquired taste - in my opinion, she is horrible and ruins the fine work done by all other members of the cast.

The film was one of many adaptations of TV shows that performed disappointingly in the wake of Marty (The Bachelor Party , 12 Angry Men) and Hollywood cooled on TV as a source of movie ideas, and would not get as excited about the medium again until the spate of movies based on old TV shows in the 1990s.

Movie review - "The Rack" (1956) **

The Rack was originally written for television by Rod Serling who sold the story to MGM for $75,000 . The adaptation was done by Stewart Stern who wrote Rebel Without a Cause and Teresa. Glenn Ford was meant to star, but when MGM decided to put the film into production in late 1955, Ford was tied up with Ransom. Instead the studio cast Paul Newman, fresh off Broadway success in The Desperate Hours and some notable TV appearances. The film was produced by Arthur Leow and directed by Arnold Laven, his first for MGM.; Col Charles M Trammel, who was assistant to the army General Counsel, was technical adviser.

It's not a very good film - a bit worthy, with Newman full of Method mannerisms and a lot of 50s angst. Better suited on the small screen. Lee Marvin is effective though and the film gets points for the guts of a down beat ending. MGM decided to delay release of the film until after Somebody Up there Likes Me, even though the latter film was made afterwards. It didn't work - the film wasn't a hit. Rod Taylor is supposedly in this but bugger if I could see him.

Movie review - "Ask Any Girl" (1959) ***

Small town girl Meg Wheeler (Shirley MacLaine) who arrives in New York to bag a husband. She falls for a good looking executive (Rod Taylor) but turns and runs when she finds out he wants nothing more than sex. The main plot involves Meg falling for a playboy (Gig Young) and enlisting the help of his stuffy brother (David Niven) and scientific research methods to snare him.

With its heroine dead set on marriage and preserving her virginity, Ask Any Girl is not very politically correct by today’s standards, though, interestingly, take away those two things and the film has basically the same plot as many modern-day romantic comedies. It is a cheery, fun movie, with MacLaine extremely appealing and polished work from Niven and Young. Rod steals the film with his stand out performance; he rarely got the chance on screen to engage in broad comedy and proves extremely adept at it, whether attempting to seduce MacLaine with wolf-ish sincerity or doing pratfalls.

Surprisingly, the film was selected to represent America at the Berlin Film Festival. The reason was the festival could only chose from films submitted to it by the Motion Picture Export Association, and only one other film (The Rabbit Trap) had been submitted.

Movie review - "Step Down to Terror" (1958) **

A low-budget effort from Universal Studios, one of the few majors who were then still regularly turning out double features, based on a story by Gordon McDonnell, ‘Uncle Charlie’, which had been filmed by Hitchcock as Shadow of a Doubt (1943). Charles Drake plays the old Joseph Cotten role of the smooth talking widow-killer who returns to his hometown and earns the suspicions of his adoring niece (Colleen Miller). Rod Taylor plays an investigating cop, the same role played by Macdonald Carey in the Hitchcock version; the part is strictly ingénue: he falls in love with Miller and thinks of marrying her after one meeting, and manages to save the day at the end. The film was directed by Harry Keller, a Universal contractee who is probably best remembered today for re-shooting scenes for Touch of Evil (1958) after Orson Welles was removed from the project. Step Down to Terror is hampered by a very low budget and suffers in comparison to the complexity and flourishes that Hitchcock brought to the same story.

Movie review - "Separate Tables" (1958) ***1/2

This was an adaptation of a Terence Rattigan play being made by Hecht-Hill-Lancaster (HHL), one of the leading independent production companies of the 1950s. HHL had started in 1948 as a partnership between the star Burt Lancaster and his agent Harold Hecht to create vehicles for Lancaster; later on screenwriter James Hill joined the team. For its first ten years HHL led a blessed life, producing a series of successful films such as Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948) and Apache (1954). In the anxious environment of Hollywood in the 1950s, HHL were seen as having the Midas touch, particularly after they made the Lancaster-less Marty (1955). (By 1957 HHL could claim that they had never lost money on a film in ten years ) In 1956 they signed a $40 million deal with United Artists to make 18 pictures over four years – the biggest independent production distribution deal in history. Separate Tables was part of a two year program of nine proposed films costing $25 million. (The others were The Devil’s Disciple, The Rabbit Trap, Take a Giant Step, Bandoola, The Way West, The Catbird Seat, Lucy Crown, and Tell it to the Drums.)

Separate Tables consisted of two plays over the one evening with two actors in both plays as different characters. Both plays were set at the same English seaside hotel: ‘Table by the Window’ is about a former Labor MP who is haunted by his ex-wife; ‘Table at Number Seven’ is about the relationship between a painfully shy woman, Sybil, and an army major with a guilty secret.

Hecht and Lancaster saw the play in London during its two year run and purchased the screen rights for a minimum of US$250,000. The lead roles were originally offered to Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, with Olivier agreeing to direct as well. It was then decided that the device of actors doubling up would perhaps not work as effectively on camera as it did on stage and that four actors would play the lead roles. This would also enable two more stars to be cast: Lancaster (as the Labor MP – rewritten to be an American) and Debora Kerr (as the shy girl).

Terence Rattigan visited Hollywood for six weeks to work on the film. It was an unhappy experience, the writer being dissatisfied with story conferences, the cost of servants, and Hollywood’s use of tranquilizers. Other writers were brought on to the screenplay, including John Michael Hayes, John Dighton and John Gay; Gay is the one who shares final screen credit with Rattigan.

By March, Leigh was off the project after “a disagreement over the script”; one theory was Olivier was not enthusiastic about working with his wife, because she had just undergone electroshock treatments for her schizophrenia. Leigh was replaced by Rita Hayworth, then romantically involved with Jim Hill (they later married). Eventually Olivier withdrew as well, reportedly because of a disagreement over structural changes in adapting the play for the screen. His role as the Major was taken by David Niven.

By this time Delbert Mann, who had made Marty for HHL, had agreed to direct. Mann had been hesitant to do the film, thinking it needed an English director, but had been talked around by Hecht who said Mann could use a primarily English support cast and go to England for research. Mann travelled to Bournemouth, visited a hotel like that described in the play, and “within hours on the first afternoon I had found a prototype for every character Terry had written – the ex-military man, the horse player, the retired teacher, the impoverished gentility, the shy, the lonely.”

Hecht was true to his word and provided a support cast that consisted of the cream of English acting, what Sheridan Morley later called “the last great stand of the Hollywood English”: Cathleen Nesbitt, Gladys Cooper, Wendy Hiller, and Felix Aylmer.

Mann claims that during filming HHL began to split into two camps, with Hecht on one side and Hill and Lancaster on the other. During post-production, Hill and Lancaster arranged for the film to be re-edited, arguing it was too slow and had too much emphasis on the Major-Sybil story. A theme song sung by Vic Damone was added to the film, put over the opening credits. Mann was furious at the changes – he swore he would never work for HHL again and he never did.

Separate Tables was cleverly marketed through a planned series of screenings in projection rooms and theatres, and a number of items planted in newspapers. United Artists invited 21,000 people to view the film, including opinion makers, women’s groups, and teenagers. Since the film was released during a newspaper strike , it was promoted through use of subway advertising, sound trucks, sandwich signs, and radio ads.

Separate Tables was released in December to generally excellent reviews. They were deserved, for it is an intelligent film with some superb acting: Lancaster and Hayworth rise to the occasion, and Kerr, Hiller and Niven are excellent. If the film is a little talky, the talk is of high quality.
Separate Tables received seven Oscar nominations, with Niven winning for Best Actor and Hiller for Best Supporting Actress. It had been made for $2.8 million and earned rentals of $2.7 million in the USA and Canada, making it equal 20th on the list of top-earning films for 1959. The film was something of a last hurrah for HHL, whose Midas touch eventually left them and suffered a series of box-office flops which causing the company to fold (including an adaptation of the Australian play Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1959))

Sources: Variety, Thomas Kiernan, Oliver: The Life of Laurence Olivier (London: Sedgwick & Jackson, 1981), Delbert Mann, Looking Back… At Live Television & Other Matters. (Los Angeles: DGA, 1998)

Movie review - "Welcome to Woop Woop" (1998) **

As a film, Woop Woop has problems, starting with a very unsympathetic hero who kills a kangaroo in the first ten minutes of the film - a hazard of driving on Australian roads but in his case it’s mostly because the driver was not looking where he was going. More crucially, the town of Woop Woop is not a nice place like Brigadoon or Shangri-La; it is hellish and horrible, and not a particularly enjoyable place to spend time, even just as an audience member. While things like the chainsaw school and all the tins of pineapple are funny, sometimes the film is just plain off. It does have the courage of its convictions though. The production and costumes are amazing, and the actors give their all.

In one respect at least, Welcome to Woop Woop was an absolute triumph: Rod Taylor. The film gives Rod the role of a life time and he embraces it with a gusto rarely matched in his career. After overplaying Australians in The VIPs and The High Commissioner, he finally gets the pitch right in this over-the-top extravaganza. Whether wearing his Collingwood clothes, tap dancing on bars, or cracking a beer, it is impossible to imagine anyone but Rod in the part and he is magnificent – hilarious, scary, even touching at times.

TV review - "The Osiris Chronicles" (1995) **

Originally shot as a pilot in 1995 for a series that never eventuated. It is an entertaining film whose most notable feature is its intriguing “world” – a collapsing society under the threat of marauders, mercenaries and barbarians – that that would have provided rich fodder for a series. The show is set around the Galactic Republic - an enlightened, paternal government of the future that had collapsed from within, causing chaos in the universe. 

The lead character was Jonathan Thorne, a rogue adventurer whose sister is abducted by aliens; he teams up with a rag-tag group and goes looking for her, encountering danger and adventure. The production design is impressive, but John Corbett is a wooden in the lead. Rod Taylor is an old crusty general type.

Movie review - "Point of Betrayal" (1995) **

An entertaining film, well worth seeking out for those interested in a solid thriller. Rod Taylor plays Ted Kitteridge, the second husband of wealthy widow Laura (Dina Merrill). Laura’s son from her first marriage, David (US football star Rick Johnson) is livid at the thought of a step-father possibly causing him to miss out on his inheritance, so he hires a nurse, Monet (Rebecca Broussard) to send mum insane, a la Gaslight . This is a sound story and there are man interesting touches, like a house built entirely underground. Rick Johnson makes a loathsome villain, a millionaire playboy so desperate to hold on to his inheritance he poisons his own mother (indeed, one cannot help wishing he got more of a come-uppance at the film’s end). Cusack and the sultry Brousset offer good support; Rod and Merrill are excellent, particularly during the scenes where she starts to lose their sanity. The ending is extremely touching.

Mini series review - "Grass Roots" (1992) **

A two-part TV mini-series based on a novel by Stuart Woods. Producer Martin Manulis and director Jerry London had previously made a mini series of Woods’ first novel, Chiefs. A character born in that novel, Will Lee, became the protagonist of Woods’ second novel, Run Before the Wind, and then of Grass Roots which was published in 1989.

The mini series cast Corbin Bernsen from LA Law as Will Lee, who is working as a Senator’s aide when he is sucked into a variety of different adventures: he has to defend a white-trash man (James Wilder) accused of rape, has an affair with the accused rapist’s nympho white-trash girlfriend (Cristi Conaway), runs for the Senate, is accused of being a homosexual by a bitchy editor (Joanna Cassidy), can not prove his heterosexuality because his girlfriend (Mel Harris) works for the CIA and wants to keep their relationship quiet, and has to deal with an assassin (John Glover) working for a white supremacist organisation. Rod Taylor is cast as the right-wing General Willoughby, head of the white supremacist organisation.

Grass Roots is well acted and professionally made, but has a fatal problem which can be identified simply from reading its synopsis: unlike Chiefs which centres around one event, Grass Roots involves a number of sub-plots which only loosely connect, and lacks a cohesive story. The acting show is stolen by Glover as the assassin. Rod is only on screen for a short while, but is effective.

TV review - "Palomino" (1991) **

By 2005 it was estimated that there were more than 530 million copies of Danielle Steele books in print. The New York Times described the basic formula of Steel novels:

A marriage suddenly disintegrates, the hero or heroine struggles to build a new life, eventually virtue is richly rewarded. Unlike Judith Krantz, another best-selling novelist with a substantial television track record, Ms Steel is not obsessed with the life styles of the very rich and powerful. Her characters live on more modest though hardly uncomfortable scales. Steel country is decidedly conservative, almost prim, a place where good men are stubborn and truly good women are dutifully impressed.

In 1990, NBC commissioned Doug Cramer to produce three TV movies based on Danielle Steel novels. The network wanted to use them as counter-programming on nights when rival networks broadcast sports events. The strategy worked, with all the films (Kaleidoscope, Fine Things and Changes) achieving solid ratings. NBC commissioned some more, including an adaptation of Steel’s 1981 novel Palomino.

The story of Palomino concerned Samantha Taylor, an advertising executive whose husband leaves her for another woman; she runs off to a Californian ranch owned by a friend, Caroline, and falls in love with the ranch foreman, Tate Jordan. Tate is uncertain about the differences in class between him and Samantha, and breaks off their relationship. There is a subplot about a romance between an older couple - Caroline and Bill King, another worker at the ranch – who are similarly divided by a difference in backgrounds.

Lead roles were played by Lindsay Frost and Lee Horsley. For the supporting parts of rough-as-guts-but-down-deep-a-softie Bill King and classy Caroline, the filmmakers cast Rod Taylor and Eva Marie Saint. Palomino is a sweet, well-made film which seems to know exactly what it wants to do and does it. Frost and Horsley make love on pink sain sheets and in a bathtub by candlelight; the dialogue includes lines like “you know how much I want you” and “you’re wrong about me – about us” – but it is quite watchable if in the mood. For those unfamiliar with Steel’s work, the paraplegia of the heroine came as a genuine surprise. It is nicely acted and a very well-cast Rod and Eva Marie Saint are a delight in their scenes together.

Movie review - "The Magnificent Seven" (1960) ***1/2

Famous Western isn't quite as good as I remembered it - terrific central idea, of course, and that incredible cast and theme song, but far too many scenes aiming for significance with the mercenary characters sitting around going "gee it's hard to be a gunslinger". 

But still it remains mightly entertaining, full of conflict. Yul Brynner is an imposing lead, Steve McQueen is great, Charles Bronson steals every scene he's in (though they cheat by giving him scenes with children), James Coburn and Robert Vaughan very likeable. 

I was surprised seeing it again how much screen time was given to Horst Buchholz, a handsome German who never quite made it. This and The Bridge on the River Kwai kicked off the great "guys on a mission" action cycle of the 60s: The Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare, Dark of the Sun, etc

Movie review - "The Great Escape" (1963) *****

Brilliant escape-from-prison, one of the best films of the 60s, full of terrific performances and thrilling sequences. I've seen it a number of times including on the big screen at 2013 MIFF and it holds up well - in part because of location filming in Germany, in part because so many of the cast and crew were in the army (some being POWS) giving it authenticity, in part because of the story, which actually happened and has tragic overtones which means it avoids the jolly-japes-just-like-school-ness of some 50s British POW movies.

Although Steve McQueen became a bona fide star when the movie was released he wasn't that massive when it was made, so it's more of an ensemble piece. I was struck how many people get a story: of course there's McQueen's legendary Hilts, constantly in the cooler, banging his baseball and speeding on a motorbike (it's fun to spot the scenes added on to the movie to make his part bigger, but it's well done); but there's also Richard Attenborough's escape chief, traumatised by unspoken things in his past; Charles Bronson's nervous wreck miner; Donald Pleasance's nerdy forger, who likes bird watching and is only in prison because he went on a joyflight; Gordon Jackson's loyal lieutenant, head of security who fatally trips up; David McCallum's sacrificial soldier, the man in charge of soil distribution (imagine telling the kids that - "I was into hiding dirt" - but he gets his own scene where he shows how to get rid of it plus a heroic death); James Coburn's knockabout performance as an Aussie - totally right in spirit, with dialogue to match (was this James Clavell?) but so way off with the accent; James Garner's scrounger.

But even smaller parts get a chance to shine: McQueen's cooler mate who goes ga-ga; Bronson's best friend (lover); the decent camp commandant who is no fan of the Nazis; Nigel Stock's surveyor who is really responsible for the whole thing going haywire (he misjudges the length of the tunnel and also trips up noisily trying to escape - but he is given a wife and kids and a death); the guard who was a member of the scouts in peacetime and is seduced by Garner; even the camp wardrobe guy who takes such pride in his work.

It's a really good script, juggling all those plots, delineating characters - I know it took a bunch of writers to come up with it (including an uncredited Walter Newman), but the effort was worth it.

The acting for the most part is superb: McQueen is all integrity and coiled dynamism (even if you know what - that final bike stunt isn't that awesome); Attenborough conveys trauma, intelligence and sadness (Attenborough is slightly apologetic in his scenes with McQueen, as if aware of his comparative lack of box office pull); Jackson has craggy strength and Bronson is excellent. James Garner is a bit TV; James Donald plays again the "survivor of it all" like he did in Bridge on the River Kwai.

There are no speaking roles for women but there are lots of love stories - McQueen and his Scottish mate, Bronson and his fellow miner, Donald Pleasance and Garner (the most touching for me, with Garner befriending the blind forger), Attenborough and Jackson. This gives the movie a real emotional core and ensure the deaths are deeply felt.

The Germans are formidable opponents, the ending is powerful and Elmer Bernstein's theme song has rarely been bettered. Occasionally there's a little repetition in the dialogue but that's a small flaw in a wonderful movie.

Movie review – “The Sorcerers” (1967) ***

Michael Reeves’ second feature film as director has a terrific central idea: an old couple discover they have the ability to take over the mind of a young man (Ian Ogilvy) and feel the sensations he feels. What happens next proceeds logically from things like going to parties, to theft to murder. The end of the second act is when the film turns mean, with Ogilvy (manipulated by the old lady) killing a very pretty, very young Susan George for no reason other than Just 'Cause.

More perhaps could have been made at the anger of the older generation towards the young, especially in the 60s – this film is perhaps ripe for remake. The low budget hurts (we continually cut back to the same disco) as does some of the acting (esp from the female lead, though she is very fetching in some Felicity Shagwell-esque tops). But it's done with energy and flair, even if the tone is very pessimistic.

Movie review – “American Gangster” (2007) ***

A film made by too many talented people to not be good, but it’s not very good. You can feel it trying to be a good movie, but it never gets there. The arteries are too clogged. There are too many scenes with different set design, and it goes too long. (Did we need to see all the stuff with Russell’s ex wife? Or with his ex partner? Or Denzel walking around?) They don’t go the obvious way and overly glamorise Denzel – while yes he’s a movie star and there are corrupt cops around, heroin is clearly a Bad Thing. The stuff with Russell Crowe being a stud seems a bit too much like “hey let’s write these scenes to attract Russell”, and the emotional link between him and Denzel is rushed at the end.
But there is lots to admire: not a bad performance in the film (wish we’d had more of Cuba Gooding Jnr and I never thought I’d say that – by the way what happens to his character>), stunning design as always in a Ridley Scott film, an exciting raid at the end, a great moment when Denzel gets into trouble only after breaking his code and dressing lavishly, the scene where Ruby Dee tells off Denzel.

Movie review – “Mondo Lugosi” (1986) **

Interesting collection of tidbits regarding Bela Lugosi. The trailers for some of his key films are a bit ho hum in these days of DVD extras, but it also includes two interviews with Bela (both which often pop up on Lugosi docos): one from the 1930s with Lugosi looking handsome and dashing, one from the 1950s with Lugosi looking weathered and drug ravaged, trying to look upbeat returning from a disastrous trip to England. There’s an extract from Glen or Glenda, Lugosi’s appearance on Hollywood on Parade, and – most interestingly of all – his guest shot playing a vampire on You Asked For It, an old 50s television show. It’s very lame but fascinating, with Bela showing himself to be a trooper all the way. On You Asked For It he talks about a TV series Dr Acula – but the host seems more interested in the starlet who is fresh off the 3D epic Second Chance.

Movie review – Francis #4 - Francis Covers the Big Town (1953) ***

The best Francis movie to date. While it takes a while to get going, and still uses the repetitive three act structure (i.e. Francis reveals he can talk to people three different times), it keeps O’Connor firmly at the center of the action and has a decent-ish plot. O’Connor wants to be a reporter and uses Francis’ inside info to break some big stories. Naturally he bites off more you can chew.

There are some very funny scenes, such as Francis reading up on Einstein and outwitting a psychiatrist, Francis giving a girl a make over, and Francis beating a confession out of a criminal. The female lead isn’t much – she’s meant to be 17 going on 18 but she looks too old.

Movie review – “Beach Red” (1967) **1/2

Watching The Naked Prey the other night has made me revisit the films Cornel Wilde made as director. This is perhaps his second best known one, the tale of a Marine attack on an island during World War Two. Wilde’s direction is surprisingly bold and imaginative, certainly a lot more than his acting tended to be: this has lots of voice over, flashbacks, freeze frames, non linear narratives. (This felt influenced by Norman Mailer’s novel, The Naked and the Dead.) It’s always interesting, even if the basic story isn’t much – they invade island, people get killed, war is Hell. The acting and characters aren’t that interesting, either (apart from Rip Torn as a gung ho sergeant), though the sense of brutality and harshness is – as is the humanizing of the enemy. The ending, with two soldiers on a deadly patrol, is quite exciting. Must of the action is intimate focusing on only a few soldiers, but then Wilde throws in these cast of thousands epic battle sequences; its like he blew the whole budget on these so had to keep the rest of it minimal (I remember there being something similar in The Sword of Lancelot). Although Wilde – looking old and weary here - plays the lead he isn’t given that much to do, as if director Wilde is all too aware actor Wilde isn’t the best actor in the world. The flashbacks to the women in the soldier’s lives don’t seem very 1940s.

Movie review – “Bride and Prejudice” (2004) ***

An attempt to make a Bollywood movie that crossed over to the West. It would seem to be a half-success – I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was wrong, the casting isn’t quite 100% or something. Aishwarya Rai is very beautiful as Elizabeth Bennett – perhaps too beautiful, she lacks a little spark; Martin Henderson is handsome Darcy, though again without a twinkle. It is still bright, colourful and very entertaining, and Jane Austen adapts brilliantly to Indian culture. Gurinder Chadha likes a bare chest and the blokes here are pretty thoroughly exploited. The supporting cast are all fine and I didn’t mind the tunes.

Movie review – “Bend It Lie Beckham” (2002) ***1/2

One of the most sheerly likeable films of the decade, made with an infectious good nature that’s hard to beat. The two female leads are very sweet – Keira Knightly is inexperienced and a bit wonky but already has charisma. (I do remember one person who saw the film saying “what was that supermodel doing in the film?”) Jonathan Rhys Meyers has a role perfected suited to his talents, the non threatening leading man. (At the end he doesn’t get with the girl but plays cricket with her dad while she goes off with her best friend – is this a first generation immigrant girl’s fantasy?). I remember watching this scene in the cinema and when Rhy Meyers appeared in a coloured shirt there were these guttural grunts of appreciation from females around me. Bright music and colours. The script is a bit undeveloped here and there with probably a few too many subplots based on people being gay and an over-rushed finale but you’re having such a good time watching it that it hardly matters. Love the extraneous detour to Germany.

Movie review – “School of Rock” (2002) ***1/2

Jack Black finally made the transfer to full fledged star with this entertaining comedy especially geared to Black’s talents. He has a brilliant time as the erratic teacher who finds a genuine gift in bringing the gospel of rock to kids – not rap, or musicals but good old fashioned rock. The other delight of the film is the little kids. A film about a “rock school” you’d expect it to feature students who were teenagers, and there’d be a little romance and all that stuff. But the decision’s been made here to have them actually be little kids, played by actors who are little kids. And it works a treat. The kid actors are amazingly good – the precocious organiser, the rebel, the chubby Chinese kid, etc. They’re all fabulous – well, except for the pretty bland bass player who seems like a 'tween MTA. Loosely plotted but full of memorable sequences and this gave me new appreciation for Stevie Nicks.

George MacDonald Fraser

Got a big shock surfing the net tonight when I read that George MacDonald Fraser had died... a month ago. And I never even knew. To be sure, I hadn't been keeping up on the news much, but still - well, I wish someone had told me.

At one stage George MacDonald Fraser was one of my favourite authors, if not the favourite. He's the first author I ever sent a fan letter to - he wrote back to me as well. My ardour cooled in later years, with the decline in the quality of the Flashman books and his increasingly ranty right wing attitudes, as evoked in his memoirs. But still, the affection remained. There is a line in All My Friends Are Leaving Brisbane which mentions him as tribute.

I first got into GM Fraser books at high school when I stumbled upon a copy of Hollywood History of the World. I enjoyed this terrific book so much - bright, opinionated, funny - that I tried to read other things he had written. The blurb announced Fraser was the author of "the Flashman novels", as if that was supposed to mean something. Well, our school had a good library and it had all the Flashmans up til that time. I devoured them eagerly and bought new ones as they came out, not to mention discovering his other works: the hilarious McAuslan stories, his entertaining histories on the Scottish-English Border Wars (both a non fiction and fictional work), his other novels.

My peak loving-George-MacDonald-Fraser time came in the mid 90s, when I had a large library of his work, wrote the fan letter, even tracked down old book reviews he had written. His masterpiece for my mind was his war memoir, Quartered Safe Out Here (still think it is). I didn't mind the straight novels, loved his writings on movies. He was a joy to read; I learned a lot about using semi colons from him (that sounds flippant and kind of is but it was also a very real impact on my own writing)

In recent years Fraser became a bit too obssessed about the decline of Britain and how bad society and Tony Blair had become. He called himself an angry old man but "cranky" would describe it better. It was distressing - sometimes you wondered what happened to the man who ran such a cynical eye over the British Empire in the first Flashman. Or how someone who could convey how vividly what it was to be young in the jungle in Quatered Safe Out Here then sounded so old on the pages of the same book when talking about the present day.

He got old, I guess, and also I think when you are stuck out on the Isle of Man and get most of your knowledge about what's happening in Britain from the television, your impressions are bound to be warped. Sometimes reading The Light's On at Signpost you just wanted him to chill out, see the good things around him a bit more. But on the other hand, maybe he enjoyed being a curmudgeon. It could have even prolonged his life. (He died of cancer at age 82 - he was a heavy smoker who only gave it up in 1999).

But the books remain. All the obits go on about Flashman but Fraser wrote so many other terrific reads as well - if you're interested in history and Hollywood try The Hollywood History of the World. If you like old pirate movies try The Pyrates. (The Reavers, the only novel of his I haven't read, his most recent one, sounds like it's in a similar vein.) There's few better memoirs of war than Quartered Safe, or of peacetime army service than the McAusland stories. He also wrote some excellent film scripts, including one of my favourite Bonds, Octopussy.

Fraser's strengths as a writer were many: vivid descriptions, brilliant historical detail (no writer had made the past come more alive), clever plot twists, raunchy sex scenes (something a lot of people ignored when talking about his work), a brilliant gift for describing sports events.

As his Sydney Morning Herald obit pointed out it was a shame he never got the chance to write a Flashman set in Australia but there yougo. The best tribute was written by his daughter, Caro. It's lovely. This reminiscence from some friends is good too.

Vale George MacDonald Fraser. He had an action packed life, wrote some terrific books, made a pile of dough and had loving friends and family. It doesn't get any better than that.

Movie review – “Marihuana” (1936) **

Anti-drug drama from Dwain Esper, the auteur of Maniac, Sex Madness and Reefer Madness. So there are lots of scenes where young people puff on cigarettes at parties, causing them to laugh wildly, kiss passionately, roll around on the floor and jitterbug, quote Shakespeare and go skinny dipping. You know, people laugh at these films – but I’ve seen marijuana actually make people do this stuff. The skinny dipping scene is quite raunchy – all the girls do it and you see their bare arses and everything.

All this fun must inevitably be punished and it is. One of the girls drowned, another gets pregnant then turns to crime. This film is a bit easier to follow than Reefer Madness as it focuses more on one character – Burma, who gets knocked up, gives up the baby and becomes a drug dealer. Burma’s a decent character with an understandable motivation (mum preferred her sister). Indeed, after the great skinny dipping scene it turns into a kind of standard tough woman melodrama with Burma running around with a bad crowd but discovering a mother’s love at the end. There is a fun scene where Burma shakes down a druggie client (a middle aged woman) but the rest of the second half is fairly conventional. And correct me if I’m wrong, but does she die at the end of the film of a marijuana overdose?

Play review - "The Big Knife" by Clifford Odets

Odets once again on the topic of selling out. A movie star is being offered a massive 14 year contract with script approval and plenty of time off. You might think "what's the problem?" but his wife doesn't want him to take it, he's sold out his career, he should go back to Broadway, etc. In 1949 these were considered serious issues - of course in hindsight we know he should have taken the money and ran. The emotional stuff about being a sell out really works, its just the mechanics to get there are a bit contrived. There is some good stuff where the wife gets the abortion, the movie star has a guilty secret which is exploited. Best characters are the rutheless Hollywood tycoon (Harry Cohn crossed with Louis B Mayer) and his equally deadly offsider (surely based on Eddie Mannix), plus the Hollywood blonde. The "good" characters - the wife and the writer (a recovering alcoholic who has found redemption) aren't very interesting. Plenty of hysterical high falutin' dialogue and heaving duty confrontations but it showed Odets was still an adept writer.

Movie review – “Cocaine Fiends” (1935) *

Part of the 30s genre of exploitation films that dealt with a social problem eg Reefer Madness, Sex Madness, Child Bride. This one’s about a girl who becomes involved with a gangster and gets involved with cocaine (“the grandest headache medicine in the world”. There’s a great scene where the girl takes cocaine for the first time (we don’t see her snort it but we see her wipe her nose afterwards and say “that was great”) and an obligatory party scene with everyone having a good old time on cocaine in the same way they have a party in Reefer Madness. But that said this feels closer to a B gangster movie about innocents getting caught up with the mob, complete with lots of scenes in night clubs and a hero copper detective who goes undercover to save a girl. So in other words too sensible to be a classic or of much interest to watch. Mediocre acting, directing, etc.

Movie review – “The Keep” (1983) **

A misfire from a very talented person. This starts off with a pounding Tangerine Dream score and dream like atmosphere as all these German trucks drive up the mansion and come across an old castle and you think “this is going to be great” because you know something bad is in that castle. But once the Germans unleash the Bad Thing in the castle it starts to get confusing. The Bad Thing doesn’t leave the castle but starts killing off the Germans one by one so some even worse Germans (led by Gabriel Byrne) arrive. Also arriving is Scott Glenn as a sort of mythical superhero – the way I tried to understand it was that he was like a good vampire and the Bad Thing was a bad vampire; the bad vampire even has a Renfield-type character, a Jewish doctor he uses as his real life assistant, because the doctor is understandably keen to knock off the Nazis. The doctor also has a daughter who has sex with Glenn – I think from the end of the film they were supposed to have fallen in love at some stage (they definitely have sex, and very stylized sex at that) but in this film there’s no emotional connection. Indeed I gather from reading stuff on the web about the film Glenn’s “character” was supposed to take this journey where he’s not been involved in the human race for ages then learns how to feel – but we don’t see that either.

To be fair, the film only runs 90 minutes and Mann meant for it to go three hours. I’m surprised this got made at Paramount in the early 80s – not surprisingly, the truncated version flopped. I would like to see a full length version but have a feeling that wouldn’t have done well either; the monster is too silly, Glenn too stone-faced, the girl character has too little to do, the plot too confusing to enable the audience to follow the emotional and intellectual concepts that Mann wants to explore. Clearly the work of a director with great ability – it’s got style to spare – but a bit of a mess.