Movie review - "Five Weeks in a Balloon" (1962) **

I'm going through a Jules Verne stage so I thought I'd revisit this Irwin Allen take on Verne's first successful novel. It was made by Twentieth Century Fox who had a hit with Journey to the Centre of the Earth and this film repeats the template: established British star in the lead, pop star in a support role, some pleasant looking females, hunky leading man.

But they miscast it. Cedric Hardwicke is too dull - he doesn't match Claude Rains or James Mason who did similar roles around this time. This part needed someone like Vincent Price or even Ray Milland.

They also made a mistake with Red Buttons. I know he won the Oscar only a few years previously but the role needed someone conventionally handsome and heroic - like Stuart Whitman or even Pat Boone (who should've made more fantasy/sci fi)

The basic structure isn't bad - the film gets off too literally a flying start with the balloon being tested (albeit with some unconvincing effects). There's some potentially interesting passengers on the balloon.

But the script is flawed. It's useful to compare with the superior Journey which was also about a cross section on an expedition. In that one James Mason had his own subplot - sexual tension with Arlene Dahl. Here Cedric Hardwicke has some dull banter with Richard Haydn, as a sort of outlandish comic relief. I get the idea but they needed to have more grounded conflict between Hardwicke and Haydn - or made her a female... someone like say Margaret Rutherford.

In Journey Dahl had more of an agenda - finding her husband. There are two women in this film but both interchangeable - missionary Barbara Eden and slave girl Barbara Luna.

I mean there's potential in Eden's character - uptight teacher girl is a great trope. But there's no interesting dynamic with Buttons, partly because Buttons is so cuddly and daggy but also because there's no inherit character clash apart from some vague misunderstanding where Eden doesn't think Buttons is as anti-slavery as she is to start off with. They really just should've gone something simple - womanizing sexy journalist falls for prim stuck up girl who is actually hot for him. And it would've been nice if she did something more than be rescued.

No one has a personal agenda. In Journey Dahl wanted to find her husband. Mason had a professional rival. Here it's vague "prove a point". The slave traders are just these N/S characters. The head slave trader should've been a character - have him approach Hardwicke at the beginning or something, or a rival of Hardwicke's, or Eden's father, or Luna's owner. Get him on the balloon.

And they needed to have a traitor on board. Maybe Luna - that would've been an interesting twist. But maybe that was too heavy for this film which is jokey - whereas in Journey the stakes were real.

It's all easier to do it from a distance, I know. But they had a template for Journey and didn't follow it enough.

Movie review - "The Vanquished" (1953) **

Pitched as a "Scarlet Pimpernel of the South" - John Payne pretends to be on the side of the carpetbaggers during Reconstruction but is actually working to bring them down. That's not a bad idea for a Western, but Pimpernel was fun - this isn't.

In Pimpernel there was a really sharp contrast between Sir Percy's foppish character and the derring do he secretly got up to. Here Payne's "cover" persona is a hard bitten person sick of living in the past - which is actually very admirable. Also while we saw Sir Percy sneak off and rescue people, put on disguises, etc Payne just sort of sneaks around.

Okay, so I rationalised, it's more of a film noir undercover film, like T Men or something. Only we don't know Payne is working for Good until 43 minutes in.

Also I hated the people he was trying to help. I think we were meant to like them - the Southerners who want to talk about the war, the little guy who worshipped Payne, the simpering moron with doe eyes he loves (Colleen Gray, who played this role far too many times eg Kiss of Death), the bombastic preacher who criticises Payne at the sermon, the old southern gentlemen. These people were all old slave owning idiots whining for the old days. Even the Union general overseeing Payne's mission is an idiot - blabbing about Payne's identity to Willard Parker.

I was on the side of the baddies - Lyle Bettger's carpetbagger, trying to run them into the ground,and most of all Jan's Sterling reformed hooker, who is panting for Payne, wants to be known as a respectable girl, and admits she likes to get Bettger all angry and excited. This character was unexpectedly complex.

To be fair Colleen Gray's character gets a great moment where she confronts Sterling trying to get the truth out of her - she picks up a dagger and attacks her then locks her in to a room. If this film had been told from the POV of the female characters and gone all sweaty Southern melodrama it might have really worked.

So I wasn't a fan. I'm finding a lot of the bigger budgeted Pine Thomas movies didn't work - for all their skills at budgeting they didn't have what it took to graduate to the big leagues. (Or maybe it was the absence of Maxwell Shane, who didn't work on this one.)

Book review - "The Studio" by John Gregory Dunne

Re-reading this observational classic which holds up very well. I read a whiny snobby New York Times review which found the whole thing shocking and alarming but having worked in the industry it seems to be just a bunch of smart people trying to do their job well.

Arthur Jacobs has had a nightmare making Dr Doolittle and is desperately trying to hype the film into being a success by any means necessary - and he's also trying to make Planet of the Apes which was a risk, non-sexy proposition. Richard Zanuck is trying to come up with successful films - he turns down Joe Pasternak's pitch of a film with Bob Buckner which doesn't sound that great. Some execs talk tough with the agent of Wayne Maunder, star of Custer.  Darryl Zanuck points out his son was given the job in part to stop him being knifed in the back. Ed Anhalt talks budgeted with Richard Fleischer for The Boston Strangler. Pasternak is impatient with the not very good director of The Sweet Ride. Actors are annoying (Heston is keen on Apes because he wants to say something meaningful, Bob Denver pitches music for Sweet Ride). Irwin Allen tries to make shows on budget.

Sure sometimes people come across as dicks - Darryl Zanuck goes out drinking with his son and their girlfriends and reminisces about the old days including Dick Zanuck's football career; Paul Monash talks about helping black people at Watts and all his therapy. But they're not evil, just human beings.

It's a great book.

Movie review - "Jamaica Run" (1953) ** (warning: spoilers)

I was hoping for a bit of colourful treasure hunting in the tropics, with action and sarongs, but while there is some diving, this is a mostly dull, talky tale about wills. On Jamaica, Ray Milland (looking too old and chubby really to play an adventurer, which is what this film needs) returns home from the wars to set up a boat business. He crosses with an old white Jamaican family living in a big mansion - mum's an old nag boozer (Carroll McComas), the son (Wendell Corey) is a drunk the daughter (Arlene Dahl) "works hard" in the field bossing the blacks around.

I think we're meant to find it sympathetic and to be on their side when there's doubt that they are meant to have inherited it (they pay minimal rent) and it could be owned by Michael Moore and Laura Elliot. Smooth Patric Knowles (stiff as ever) hires Milland to do some deep sea diving and Moore ends up dead.

What follows is not that gripping. The investigation is done by a local cop when really it should've been Milland. They set up Milland as a suspect but we know it's not going to be him because he's the hero. We know it's going to be Knowles because he acts, well, evil, whereas Corey has this romance with Elliot.

Corey tries but his character is terrible - going for the bottle whenever he doesn't get his way like a sook. I kept wanting to go to Elliot "run". Dahl isn't into Milland but he chases after her.I think McCormas' old lazy racist biddy is meant to be loveable.

These people were unpleasant to hang out with - they should've gone the whole hog and just made them awful.

It's lazily written too - the reveal of the killer is done by a witness just rocking up in a room and going "Knowles did it" and Knowles just meekly surrenders. And the end rips off Rebecca with black servant William Walker burning down the mansion so no one can get it. Which might have been interesting if they'd set it up but it was just yuck - the loyal dark servant trope in this film about white Jamaicans. Even worse the script has it that it was McComas' idea and she doesn't even idea.

There's some voodoo and a lack of atmosphere. The colour isn't but I really didn't like this film.

Movie review - "Sangaree" (1953) ** (warning: spoilers)

Pine-Thomas went for 3D in this one - an odd choice you'd think for what is basically a costume melodrama, but the colour and costumes are the best thing about this. It's a treat to look at and the film isn't that bad.

The story is a bit odd - the sort of story you'd only make if it was based on a best seller. All the elements are there for a decent film but the script writers haven't been able to knock it together to make a cohesive whole.

You've got plague, love triangles, forbidden love, free medical clinics, court room antics, duels, pirates, mobs with tiki torches, ram raids on ships, death... but it's all a mess.

For instance, there's a plague running loose but we never see its effects or someone get it til the end. We never see Lamas do much work at his free clinic, he seems more interested in going to meetings. The head baddy (John Sutton) is shot by his wife (Patricia Medina) off screen - we don't see it happen. We hear about these pirate attacks but don't see any.

Fernando Lamas is a handsome devil but its hard to understand what he's saying. Arlene Dahl looks great in technicolor and starts off fantastically in a scene pretending to be a maid and flirts/digs for information from Lamas who has just been for a swim and these two clearly want to bone each other and it's really hot... but they never recapture that chemistry.

Head baddy John Sutton is a whimp who Lamas beats in a duel and dies off screen. They set up this pirate Charles Korvin who is then revealed to be nice. Willard Parker strolls in playing some random role and is part of the climax. You keep waiting for Tom Drake, as Lamas' adopted brother, to get upset his wife Patricia Medina is in love with Lamas... but it never happens. Medina says she hates Arlene Dahl but her actions against her are, again, all described rather than seen. There's a final duel between Lamas and Korvin only they make it the duel is between Korvin and Parker with Lamas as the second only there's no point to the duel because Korvin is innocent and we've just met him and this all happens towards the end and...

Oh and slavery is "covered" by having Lamas' adopted father free them at the beginning.

It's frustrating because I wanted to enjoy this. Maybe the film should've been about this pirate who is falsely accused of spreading plague. Or something...

Movie review - "Gambler's Choice" (1944) **

Richard Arlen left Pine-Thomas so they couldn't make Arlen-Chester Morris movies any more and tried a replacement with Russell Hayden. Hayden is the biggest weakness of this film - he's a skinny wet drip with a droopy moustache, and no sense of threat or power. When Morris goes to Nancy Kelly "you're in love with Hayden" you go, "no she isn't".

It's a shame because the basic story of this is solid and it's a period movie, very rare for thrifty Pine-Thomas. Morris, Hayden and Kelly are childhood friends who grow up in different ways - Kelly is a saloon singer, Hayden a cop, Morris runs a gambling saloon. There's songs a gun play.

It's a knock off of the story of movie James Cagney was making at Warner Bros - two men in love with the same woman, being a gangster but a good gangster, etc - complete with Morris staggering down the steps and dying of a gunshot wound - but amiable. It just needed a stronger male co-star. (They realised it too and never reteamed Morris and Hayden even though they'd planned to.)

The support cast includes people like Sheldon Leonard, Lyle Talbot and Lee Patrick from The Maltese Falcon.

Movie review - "Those Redheads from Seattle" (1953) **1/2

Pine Thomas were known for their action films but decided to try a musical here - perhaps because they had a good relationship with former song and dance man John Payne, as well as Rhonda Fleming, who had been in Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

Payne dropped out and was replaced by Gene Barry who is okay. Fleming is so-so as well - she looks great in colour but isn't that much of a musical star (or even actor).

However the support cast of this is strong. Guy Mitchell is someone I have never heard of - a popular singer - he has an easy disposition and nice voice. Agnes Moorehead is always reliable. Teresa Brewer is inexperienced dramatically but sings well. The Bell Sisters (who play other sisters) are lively. Jean Parker is back in a support role.

It's got pep, is colourful, and has a great central idea - it's about a widow and her four daughters who wind up in Alaska. I'm partial to redheads and to "Northerns" so I guess I'm biased but it was lively, the tunes were fine. For musical neophytes, Pine-Thomas did a good job.

There are story problems. It wastes too much time with the girls not knowing the dad is dead - why not tell them straight up? They could still come to Alaska. It just results in these unpleasant "they don't know yet" moments which don't add to the story. It takes far too long for the girls to get active trying to make money, going into singing and running a newspaper etc - that should've been the core of it. The plot about who killed the girl's dad seems to be thrown on and the girls should've been involved in it -say one of the sisters falls for the killer or something, or is kidnapped by him. As it is, Barry just takes off to participate in his own action sequence without any redheads.

Even though it's a female centric story the core of it is still two rivals for the one person - though in this case it's two sisters (Fleming, Brewer) in love with a guy (Barry).

So a flawed film but quite fun.

Movie review - "The Navy Way" (1944) **1/2

A different sort of Pine-Thomas movie, despite being written, as so many of them were, by Max Shane. It's more laidback, more devoted to character, as it looks at four men who enlist in the Navy. The main ones are a boxer and a millionaire; there's also an older guy and a momma's boy.

Earlier the main guys would've been played by Richard Arlen and Chester Morris but they're not here - there's the younger Robert Lowery and William Henry. To be honest I had trouble telling them apart - and from the other actors.

There's Jean Parker returning to give Pine Thomas some continuity - she's good as always and has quite a racy make out session in a swimsuit with Henry who is in his swimmers.

The film sets up a whole bunch of plots but in the second half basically ignores them to focus on Robert Lowery, who plays the bitter boxer, who loses Parker to millionaire Henry (no fool she!) I was enjoying the stories about the rancher whose son died and the kid who had never been away from home - I was looking for some development there. Ditto the girl who was dumped by Henry.

Still it's decently done. Acting is fine - Lowery became an inhouse star for Pine-Thomas (it's a great role - you get to be bitter, heroic, cry to chaplains). There's second unit shooting at the real naval training facility near the Great Lakes. Robert Armstrong pops up as an officer.

There's a bit of punching and a little bit of acting but the bulk of this is character stuff which is a nice change.

Book review - "Kidnapped" by Robert Louis Stevenson

I first became familiar with this as a kid reading an abridged version with plenty of pictures. But you know something? I don't think my judgement's changed. It starts off fantastically - with David Balfour orphaned, going to his uncle, uncle tries to kill him by sending him up stairs, he's sold into slavery, meets Alan Breck, helps fight against the crew, winds up shipwrecked, a blind man tries to kill him.

Then things get let sure - the plot ambles as the characters amble through the heather. David meets Breck, they are near an assassination, they meet some highlanders - but it's really kind of a lot of walking and became less interesting. I felt a specific person needed to be after them or something.

Breck is a great character - Han Solo of his day, doing a little dance after a fight because he loves war so. Really, David should be a girl in this - they even have a lovers tiff.

A very strong first third, but then I lost interest.

Random thoughts on Grease 2

Watched this on a big screen. Some observations:
* It's quite well directed. Pat Birch got nil credit for the film but the frame is always full of colour and movement and well spaced out. There's plenty of action and energy - aways something going on in the background, you get a real sense of time and place. It feels like a "real" high school (real for a musical), the friends feel like friends.
* This is an interesting comparison to the male gaze. Max Caulfield spends a lot of time gazing at Michelle Pfeiffer. Birch shoots him adoringly though. Female director of a male gaze. Pfeiffer is strong and dynamic and he adores her. Has this film been picked up by feminist analysis?
* Biggest, easily fixable weakness of the film - the cut the balls off Johnny, played by Adrian Zmed. He's weak, and a coward - running away from confrontation with Crater Face. Why do this? He's not threat to Caulfield or anyone really. In the original, Danny and Kinicke were actually tough - their offsiders weren't but they were. Zmed gives a good performance, can sing and dance, but his character is fatally weakened which weakens the drama.
* I used to think a flaw of the film was the fact Pfeiffer was never into Zmed but Zmed kept going on about her. It made no sense that Pfeiffer wouldn't be with Caulfield because of the Pink Lady/T Bird thing because Pfeiffer wan't into the T Birds in anyway shape or form. HOWEVER - on watching it again, it struck me that it's not so much the T Birds that stop her, it's the Pink Ladies. The film and actors do a really good job convincing us that Pfeiffer and the other girls are friends - they are always bantering and having fun. And the Pink Ladies say you can't leave the T Birds. I believe Pfeiffer wouldn't date Caulfield because of them, not because of the T Birds. I think if more had been made of that, the film would've made more sense.
* A bigger problem - Grease had some basis in reality. Yes it was a musical but the problems were all relatable - class differences, going to a dance, going to a drive in, the influence of the peer group, etc. Grease 2 has at its core an outlandish concept - someone pretends to be a bike rider to get a girl and becomes a super hero. Now this does work dramatically and has a satisfying pay off at the end but... it does mean the film is, at its core, inherently silly. I don't know how you'd fix it really - it's such a part of the film's charm - but it is worth mentioning.
* The actors who play the other T Birds and Pink Ladies are as good as any in the original. They have defined characters, and do an excellent job. Also some of the songs are first rate.
* Caulfield is better than I remember. He does good "gaze". But they really should've cast someone who can sing and/or dance. His big numbers, "Charade" and "Turn Back the Hands Of Time" both involve him being protected. Part of the film's appeal is him being isolated I guess but I wish they'd found some way to incorporate him into the action. Sandy was, in Grease - she was in the dance, and singing songs. For instance, could he have been involved in the "Score Tonight" number? Singing with the clean kids? Or could he sing "Reproduction"? Or be given his own number. He's not incorporated into film nearly enough.
* Despite the sexual content of many of the songs, to be at least the film doesn't feel to have a rape-y vibe because most of the characters are clearly played by Broadway dancers in their late twenties who have probably seen and done it all in bed anyway.
* I would say that Michael and Stephanie are a better couple than Danny and Sandy. Danny and Sandy could never get it together in the real world - we saw that. He was overly influenced by his friends, or tried to date rape her, or dumped her at a dance; she had to change to keep him, he wanted to change to keep her.Sure they had a good holiday together but that was holiday mirage - I think on a day to day level they're going to struggle. But Michael and Stephanie are shown (in one scene admittedly, at the diner) to get along as normal people - they make each other laugh, they like that each other is smart, they're both clearly destined for more than Rydell High.
* There's no central set piece like the school dance number in Grease. I think that was a mistake.

How would I have fixed Grease 2? Well, some of it is easy - strengthen Zmed's character, give the role of Michael to someone who could sing, make the choice for Stephanie more about the Pink Ladies. Have a big "school dance" style number. Do you adjust the bike stuff? You may as well commit - I can't think of a better take.

Anyway I do like the film.

Book review - "Charles Walters: The Director Who Made Hollywood Dance" by Brett Phillips

Charles Walters really should be better known - his CV includes several classic musicals (Easter Parade, High Society, Lil, Unsinkable Molly Brown) and a bunch of skilled comedies (Ask Any Girl, The Tender Trap). He probably doesn't get the credit he deserves.

I wonder why? A relatively skinny filmography? An unexciting name? A lack of films that touch on queer themes despite the director being queer? Being associated with MGM?

Walters was a dancer and actor who became a name on Broadway, eventually moving into choreography. He was a good looking guy who might've had a chance at being a movie star himself but stayed behind the camera, got a job at MGM as choreographer and dance director. He established himself as one of their best in part because he would look at dances in the context of the whole story and eventually became a director.

His directing career started with a bang: Good News, Easter Parade, The Barkleys of Broadway. He was one of the big directors at MGM, though interestingly lost some key assignments to George Sidney (another not very well known director). He found the going a little harder in the late 50s as musicals became less popular but segued neatly into comedies. He occasionally tried drama (eg Torch Song) but his heart didn't seem to be in it - he walked out on I'll Cry Tomorrow, for instance, and disliked Dore Schary. He hated Vera Ellen.

He had the chance to do a dream project with Billy Rose's Jumbo which lost a pile of money but bounced back with The Unsinkeable Molly Brown.

His career ended rather abruptly - he left MGM in the mid 60s and made the popular Walk Don't Run but that was about it, apart for some TV work for Lucille Ball. I think he was too much of a company man to make the adjustment to freelance life.

Walters lived a long life and hung on to a lot of his money. He had a long term relationship with one guy, an agent - and then later with a younger guy who he adopted (so he would inherit Walters' money). He lived as a gay man - discretely but he actually lived with someone. He worked with Garland on Easter Parade and Summer Stock but even he found her hard going and asked not to do it again. However he did direct her on Broadway.

This is an excellent book, well researched and written. Sometimes I did wish I could click on a switch to watch bits from the film that the writer describes. But a very good book.

A top ten for Walters:
1) High Society (1956) - his favourite film, a jaunty fun musical
2) Ask Any Girl (1959) - a film very much of it's time, with rape treated comically, but some excellent comic performances including Rod Taylor
3) Easter Parade (1948) - top line talent and then some
4) Billy Rose's Jumbo (1962) - I actually haven't seen it - but it's a passion project so I put it in
5) The Unsinkeable Molly Brown (1964) - Walters says his greatest achievement was directing Debbie Reynolds to an Oscar nom
6) Easy to Love (1953) - Esther Williams bagged a lot of directors in her memoirs but not Walters
7) Summer Stock (1951) - decent musical with the classic Garland "nervous breakdown" number "Get Happy"
8) The Tender Trap (1955) - classic swinging bachelor comedy
9) Lili (1953) - random fairytale film which became a big hit - Walters couldn't make lightning strike twice with The Glass Slipper
10) Don't Go Near the Water (1957) -amiable service comedy with Glenn Ford.

Book review - "Nemesis" by Max Hastings (re-reading)

I was struggling to get through a book on the Norwegian Campaign so I read this to be reminded of what a really well written military history was like. It's an excellent account of the last two years or so of the War in the Pacific. Some of it is familiar - Leyte Gulf, MacArthur, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, the atomic bomb, Slim in Burma - but Hastings makes it seem fresh.

There's also chapters on areas not as familiar - such as the strikes and malaise that plagued Australia in the second half of the war (we are unable to confront this as a nation - it's too touchy because it gets hijacked by cultural warriors on both sides and it shouldn't), but also the war in China (still crucially downplayed by Western histories), the Russian invasion of Manchuria (so much pointless death), the tale of the B29 and Curtis Le May, the submariners (who were the ones who really won the war). A superb book.

George MacDonald Fraser's memoirs get quoted a lot.

Book review - "The Ebb Tide" by Robert Louis Stevenson

One of Stevenson's last completed novels although he wrote it with Lloyd Osborne. It's a cracker story - Wages of Fear meets Apocalypse Now as three down and outs on a Pacific Island get a second chance when a ship comes in with all the crew dead from fever. They plan to rob the ship, only to find out the cargo is dodgy, and wind up at an island run by a maniac. The climax looks to build to something awesome but after the drunk dude dies, that's it. It's a shame.

It's also got to be said this isn't very well written -  florid and over the top. Was this Osborne more than Stevenson? Maybe that's why it isn't very well known.

Also there's a lot of racism that is typical of the time but hard to read - talk of n*ggers and Kanakas and so on, and they're all depersonalised too.

Movie review - "Swamp Fire" (1946) **

Johnny Weismuller swaps a loin cloth for clothes in this Pine-Thomas actioner which is probably best remembered (if at all) for uniting him with Buster Crabbe and for being his first non-Tarzan movie.

Actually the best thing about it is the setting - the Louisiana swamps. Cajun country, from Southern Comfort.

Weismuller looks awkward - a big lumbering dude who seems to have ambled in from, well, the set of a Tarzan film. Crabbe is a lot more effective, with his moustache and a decent ish stab at a French accent. Actually all the other performances are fine except Weismuller. I started riffing that the characters would bag out Weismuller's when he walked off screen ("he's an idiot", "oh I know he's the worst" etc etc) and that passed the time.

It feels as though they couldn't make up their mind as to what sort of movie this is, it's all over the place. There's a love quadrangle with Weismuller loved by local girl Carol Thurston and stylish city gal Virginia Grey and Crabbe loving Thurston. Weismuller has some PTSD because of the war. Thurston's brother dies. Crabbe poaches on someone's land. There's a swamp fire and a battle with an alligator.

It's all over the shop - melodrama with a bit of action. Feels like an "oh put that in" movie.

It is of some interest I just wish it was more disciplined.

Movie review - "Timber Queen" (1944) **

Run of the mill Pine Thomas film, set in the world of timber. Richard Arlen is a war veteran whose dead mate was married to singer Mary Beth Hurt (very likeable). They wind up on the latter's property, trying to defend it from baddies. There's a fellow singer (June Havoc), cute nightclub owner (Sheldon Leonard), lots of stock footage, a bit of flying and an uninspired plot including some dull punching.

There's attempts to add some comic dialogue but it feels tired and isn't very good.

Movie review - "Run for Cover" (1956) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

This film teams some people not typically associated with Westerns - Jimmy Cagney, Viveca Lindfors, Nicholas Ray. It's a film Ray made between Johnny Guitar and Rebel without a Cause and doesn't have any sort of cult but isn't bad.

The plot has Cagney meet young outlaw John Derek and kind of fall in love with him/see him as a surrogate son. He probably should've been his actual son for the drama to really work, or at least had a longer running relationships - I know the script has characters bang on about the surrogate son stuff but it rang hollow because Cagney meets Derek at the beginning - they hardly know each other.

They are falsely accused of a robbery by townsfolk who later, feeling guilty, offer Cagney a gig as sheriff. There's a twist where it turns out Cagney is an ex con - he says it's because of mistaken identity but why not just have him as a genuine ex con (could've been for good reasons). This weakens the drama.

It is good how Derek turns bad and helps some baddies, led by Ernest Borgnine and I liked the Cherokees providing trouble.

There's good ideas here and Cagney is always compelling and I liked Lindford a lot. Derek is weak - Nick Ray couldn't work his magic on Derek. He doesn't wreck the film though because the character is weak - I just kept wishing they'd have someone like say Farley Granger who was a better actor.

Movie review - "Minesweeper" (1943) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Quite good, unexpectedly grim Pine Thomas war flick which focuses, like many PT movies, on a job not really well covered in movies - here, minesweeping.

The story is quite strong - Richard Arlen is a hobo who was a naval officer but went AWOL because of his gambling. After Pearl Harbour he enlists under a pseudonym. I thought this would be a straight forward tale of redemption but it gets dark because Arlen's gambling causes him to stuff up again leading to the death of friend "Big Boy" Williams - Arlen then is guilt riddled and heroically sacrifices himself looking for mines.

Jean Parker is good as always as the girl Arlen loves (I've become a big admirer of Parker) although the script doesn't give her much to do. Maxwell Shane usually gave the female leads something decent to play but here she basically serves food.

Russell Hayden is a bit wet as Arlen's rival but it's a decent entry - there's some documentary style backgrounds which help.

Movie review - "Hell's Island" (1955) **

John Payne and Phil Karlson were both dab hands at film noir, often together. This one doesn't quite make it.

It has its moments - such as an interesting opening where Payne is shot by a man in a wheelchair and then explains to a cop while smoking in an operating theatre (!) about what happened. It starts off well with Payne working in a casino and being asked by the man to find a ruby on a fictitious island.i

But once Payne arrives on the island, when the film gets better it gets more dull. There's too many scenes of him talking with his ex, Mary Murphy (who I wondered why didn't have a bigger career after The Wild One but after seeing her in this I know... she's just too ordinary, too girl next door). There's not enough plot.

The Maltese Falcon - which this aped - had lots going on: Sam Spade, his secretary, dead partner, partner's wife, Joel Cairo, Gutman, the gunman. This one has Murphy and the guy in the wheelchair and some crocodiles but that's about it.

It feels like it should be shot in black and white and made ten years ago. It's actually in colour and there's a few scenes outside but I felt the island setting wasn't really exploited - a few market scenes and a killer alligator lifted my hopes but there wasn't enough.

Movie review - "Submarine Alert" (1943) **

This WW2 Pine Thomas actioner is a little flat. The basic story sounds okay - the government arrange for a bunch of radio engineers to be fired in order to track them and see if they're recruited by enemy agents to transmit information. But when you think about it, that's a little mean and risky. Why not just get someone to go undercover.

Richard Arlen is the engineer - he thinks he got fired because he's Canadian! And he's tempted to work to save the life of a three year old girl he looks after. (Cute kids were popping up in Pine Thomas around this time).

Wendy Barrie is an FBI agent who pretends to meet him accidentally and falls in love with him which is okay complication and gives her something to do.

But it all feels a bit flabby.  I was bored. There's an annoying kid on a short wave radio, evil villains who feel like they should be played by Bela Lugosi.

I also felt cheated none of it took place on a submarine! The release for this was held up over a year and I'm not surprised.

Movie review - "Alburqueque" (1948) **

Pine Thomas took a tentative step into the big time with this Western - it's got a decent budget, colour, Randolph Scott and Gabby Hayes.

It's not very interesting though. Scott is a cowboy who comes to the title town to work for his uncle who turns out to be a baddy so Scott ends up helping the goodies. There's an insipid female lead but a more meaty other female lead part (played by Barbara Britton) - a conwoman who causes trouble and romances Scott's ally, Russell Hayden.

Scott smokes in a few scenes which feels weird. He's polite and good natured, looks at home in the saddle. I wasn't wild about him. Gabby Hayes does his thing. Theres an okay support cast - I really liked seeing Lon Chaney (who has a fist fight with Scott!) and George Cleveland was effective as the main baddie, with a soft spoken voice.

Still, it was all a bit underwhelming.

Movie review - "Aerial Gunner" (1943) *** (warning: spoilers)

More two fisted antics from Pine-Thomas with Richard Arlen and Chester Morris as rivals (Arlen was a cop who Morris thinks hounded the latter's crim father to suicide) who wind up in the same aerial gunner crew. That's good solid conflict - I think it works better than in Wrecking Crew where they were basically mates.

Of course they also both like the same girl, Lita Ward - who isn't much (not as good as Jean Parker) but whose part isn't very big. Writer Maxwell Shane at least gives her something to do - she's the sister of Jimmy Lydon (who was in the Harry Aldrich films over at Paramount)... and Lydon cracks up during training and later dies trying to prove his bravery.

The film is well done - decent acting, Arlen and Morris are believably tough. It's helped by location filming at a real life aerial gunnery school in Texas - and also the seriousness of the story and the situation (Lydon dies, Morris dies).

I really liked seeing Bob Mitchum in a small role - he has a few lines too even though he isn't credited. It's a strong film. Great finale with Morris blasting away against the Japanese on a deserted island.

Movie review - "Lucy Gallant" (1955) **1/2

Jane Wyman was a sensible no-nonsense actress who had a long career, and a decent run as a genuine box office star whose appeal was playing sensible types who have adventures.

This is one such movie, and as such it's kind of weird it was the last one Pine-Thomas made for paramount - it's got a decent budget, stars, is in VistaVision and colour, and is a woman's picture.

To be fair there is some two fisted stuff with Charlton Heston being an oil man who loves Wyman, who rocks up in her town to set up a department store. That's actually a pretty good idea for a film - the adventures of a fashion magnate in rough-tough Texas - and you wish they'd done more with it.

There's some stock adventures - World War Two spirits Heston away, Wyman becomes partners with a brothel madam (Claire Trevor, whose role is disappointingly small).

Heston and Wyman make a good team - two solid pros. Heston suits playing the male lead in women's pictures, with his swagger, height and virility. I'm not a massive Wyman fan. I really enjoyed how these two admired each other's drive and spunk - though to be honest he seems more into her and she's into him. I wasn't that wild about him insisting she give up her career; I know they needed a third act, and this is me looking at it through a modern prism, but I wish they'd found something else. He bails her out, she needs help, then seems to throw business away... is that it?

Dramatically the film operates at half throttle. There's a bit of war and Heston flirts with a French girl and there's a brothel and Wyman's father kills himself in the backstory but it's all low key. No bankruptcies, no pregnancies/miscarriages/dead partners, no on screen suicide, no deaths even (despite old Thelma Ritter and William Demarest hanging around). It's all very polite.

TV review - "Laura" (1955) ***

An adaption of the film for The 20th Century Fox Hour done for one hour. It's of interest mostly to see other people in the roles - George Sanders as Lydecker, Robert Stack as Mark, Dana Wynter as Laura, someone called Scott Forbes as Shelby. The Judith Anderson part is hardly in it - and there's not much Laura this is mostly Lydecker and Mark.

The replacements aren't bad - Stack is a similar solid type to Dana Andrews, Sanders is always good as a villain (though I preferred Clifton Webb's waspishness). Wynter is pretty but not quite as enigmatic as Gene Tierney.

It's not bad - professional, solid. Depth is inevitably lost via condensation - there's no romance between Laura and the detective for instance. John Brahm directed.

Movie review - "Wrecking Crew" (1942) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Pine Thomas were hitting their stride by this time - this is an expertly constructed tough guy melo about men who wreck buildings. They cast their two stars, Chester Morris and Richard Arlen, opposite each other - co workers who fall for the same woman.

Jan Parker is the female lead and the writers (Max Shane and Richard Murphy) give her a decent role to play, at first any way - a suicidal woman with a shady past who is befriended by Morris. Morris considers her his lucky charm - he thinks he's bad luck because people die on his work sites.

There's other interesting touches - footage of buildings exploded, the novelty of the jobs, the fact the team work for a little old lady. I was unsure whether Parker would pick Morris or Arlen - Arlen played the more responsible character with Morris as the buccaneer, who normally get the girl, and Morris gets to be more heroic at the end... but Parker picks Arlen.

The second half is less good - the film lacked a villain. There is a drunken worked who causes trouble but I guess I wanted more. And wish Parker could've gotten more involved in the action in the second half. Still, it's a pretty good film.

Movie review - "Nightmare" (1956) **1/2

One of the last Pine-Thomas films - they were called Pine-Thomas-Shane by this stage to reflect the contribution of Maxwell Shane, who wrote many of their films. Shane was a very good writer - the Pine-Thomas scripts were generally strong - and this benefits from a good Cornell Woolrich source.

It's about a musician who dreams he's killed someone and is convinced the dream is real. Kevin McCarthy plays the lead and Edward G Robinson his brother in law. I wish Robinson had played the lead - he was a better actor, more of a star. But this was McCarthy's Invasion of the Body Snatchers heyday.

It feels 50s - jazz on the soundtrack, a groovy opening with McCarthy freaking out, some of the female actors have pointy breast outfits, there's more scenes outside (a picnic). I wonder if it would have been more effective set indoors.

Lots of good things about the movie but it feels as though it should have been made cheaper and all film noir. Also the story feels stretched - it needed another subplot or 20 minutes cut out or something. Maybe it would've been better as a one hour episode of an anthology. Or it needed more stars.

I mean, it's okay - Woolrich fans will enjoy it - just a bit underwhelming.

Swashbuckler Top Ten

For no good reason other than procrastination and because it's been so long I did one of my top tens I thought I'd post my top ten swashbuckling films (criteria: must be a period film and the blades can't be lasers)

1) Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl (2001): the memory is kind of tainted by the sequels but this is still a good movie with a strong script - so strong that while Johnny Depp deservedly got a lot of kudos for his performance I think it would've worked with another actor in the role provided he could go "big" eg Robert Downey Jnr

2) The Princess Bride (1987) - an easy choice, though I would argue the sword fights aren't that great (Rob Reiner was never much of an action director) but the script and cast are sublime

3) The Prince Who was a Thief (1951) - Tony Curtis' Bronx accent is a little odd in this "Eastern" but the film is great colourful fun - and you know something? these films (about evil Wazirs and dancing girls and genies and stuff) remain the most positive depiction of Musim characters in Hollywood history

4) Night Creatures aka Captain Clegg (1963) - a sub genre of swashbucklers was the "smugglers on the coast of England" film (eg Moonfleet, Jamaica Inn) -this is a great one, one of a surprisingly large number of swashbucklers from Hammer Studios (Devil Ship Pirates has always been a favourite), which has amazing colour and one of Peter Cushing's best performances

5) Against All Flags (1952) - there's a whole bunch of Errol Flynn movies I could pick for this list and several are, if I'm honest, much better (eg Captain Blood, Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk, the one I list below) but I'll go for this one in part because it's not that well remembered and I like it so much - the script writers have gleefully raided history for pirate names and there's a great support cast (Maureen O'Hara as a very sexually liberated female pirate and Anthony Quinn)

6) The Vikings (1958) - full on viking movie, with amputations, people being eaten by dogs and brothers stabbing each other to death

7) The Three Musketeers (1948) - Gene Kelly isn't known as a great swashbuckler star but I love this movie - his dancing agility is used so well it makes you wish he'd done more swashbuckling

8) Scaramouche (1952) - Stewart Granger's best movie, Eleanor Parker's best performance (when her hair was red she turned into a star), great fun despite the insipid Granger-Janet Leigh romance

9) The Adventures of Don Juan (1948) - I'm limiting myself to two Errol Flynns - Robin Hood, Captain Blood and Sea Hawk are actually better movies but this is still lots of fun, in part because it suits having old decaying Errol in the lead... a man who's done a lot of hard living, looking for a cause - looks amazing with a great music score

10) The Hidden Fortress (1958) - best known as a chief inspiration for Star Wars this is a good movie in its own right though it really takes too long to set up the story.

Other favourites: The Black Pirate (1926), Son of Monte Cristo (1940), The Corsican Brothers (1941), The Prisoner of Zenda (1937 and 1952 versions), At Sword's Point (1951) , El Cid (1961), The Four Musketeers (1974), The Mark of Zorro (1940), The Crimson Pirate (1952)

Random honourable mention - to "Nate and Hayes" (1983) a New Zealand swashbuckler (it's set in the south seas) co written by John Hughes of all people... with Michael O'Keefe, Tommy Lee Jones and Jenny Seagrove - the film doesn't quite work but I include it on this list because it's so random

Movie review - "Wildcat" (1943) ***

Enjoyable Pine-Thomas programmer, one of their best. Richard Arlen is very much at home as an oil man who tries to strike it rich. He fines a promising prospect, teams up with Elisha Cook Jnr, starts to look for oil.

It's a good story - Cook dies in an accident, Buster Crabbe is the villain, Arline Judge and William Frawley are two con artists who try to con Arlen by being Cook's sister. It's all good two fisted stuff like Boom Town. Frank McDonald's direction keeps things pumping along, Maxwell Shane and Richard Murphy's script is good, the acting fine.

There's some strong production value too - shots of oil rigs, some up high, a spectacular firey climax. I enjoyed it - it wasn't erratic in tone like many of the other early ones.

Movie review - "El Paso" (1949) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Pine-Thomas were known for their low budget action films but after the war they began to think that you needed to spend money to make money so the budgets rose - this was their first million dollar movie and their first with John Payne, with whom they would often collaborate.

It's not a bad Western, with Payne as a former Confederate officer and lawyer who goes out west after the war to visit a town and discovers it's under the thumb of landowner Sterling Hayden. He falls for Gail Russell whose father Henry Hull is a drunken judge. There's also Gabby Hayes.

The colour is gorgeous, the locations are fine - it's not a spectacle but there's impressive production values. Payne is a strong action hero - sensitive but also virile. Hayden is an effective villain though his part is surprisingly limited - they probably should've given him more to do. Russell brings her fragile beauty - it's not really much of a role, to provide a conscience, but she's fine. Hill hams it up. So does Hayes, Dick Foran is an effective villain.

There's interesting themes and moments here. It's about Payne wanting to bring law and the importance of the rule of law - though he wants to get revenge and so gets to kick arse (having it's cake and eating it too). Payne gets to kill Hayden and spare Dick Foran. Payne kills an innocent person. A kid is orphaned.

There's a fantastic final shoot out in a dust storm.  I like the way Payne is mentored by a Mexican friend - who tells him how to shoot but also urges caution.

The film never quite clicks into top gear. The drama feels muddled somehow - as if the film isn't living up to its potential.  There's a decent running time but I kept wanting to see more Payne-Russell, more fleshed out stuff for Hayden and Foran, more of the thief Mary Beth Hughes.

So it's frustrating.Lots of good things about it though.

Movie review - "I Live on Danger" (1943) *1/2

Chester Morris' second film for Pine Thomas has him as a radio reporter (which gives it novelty) covering various events. He investigates a ship's fire and winds up blaming a man who is innocent... because it was a frame up. He falls for the boy's sister (Jean Parker).

The quality of the support cast is high but this isn't very good. The handling from director Sam White is poor - slack and inconsistent.The movie starts out as a jaunty mystery - then it gets all serious when Morris goes to cover a fire, and there's crying children and mothers and it feels like a different movie. The scenes with Parker are heavy and emotive rather than sparring and the whole thing just slows right down.

There are three writers credited and I wonder if that's part of the problem. The movie feels as though it lacks a cohesive vision. It doesn't even have the normal Pine-Thomas virtues of pace and action. The acting is pretty decent.

Movie review - "No Hands on the Clock" (1942) **

Pine Thomas started making three aviation films with Richard Arlen - it went well so they expanded, signing a three picture deal with Chester Morris. They optioned the rights to a Humphrey Collins novel by Geoff Homes, aka Daniel Mainwaring, best known for Out of the Past - I think they were hoping for a series.

It didn't happen but this film has some good things about it - the pace is fast, the acting pretty good. There's Morris, a heavyset dude who never became a big star but had a bit more charisma than Arlen. There's also Jean Parker, stepping in for Frances Farmer apparently, who is bright and spirited and has a scene with wet hair where she looks sexy.

The film starts with them being newlyweds - he met her investigating a case, which actually sounds like a good movie and they probably should have started the series with that story.

The plot is complicated - it involves the search for a missing man. I had trouble following it. Morris occasionally has to flirt with a woman making Parker jealous. Theres subplots about him looking like a bank robber. Parker helps/hinders Morris - sometimes it's funny other times he seems to be using rougher than usual handling. There's some action, lots of talking, some screwball comedy - a bit too much of everything instead of something with a clear vision. It's not bad, just a bit of a mess.

Movie review - "Flying Blind" (1942) **

The third Pine-Thomas aviation film starts off strongly with some His Girl Friday style antics at a struggling airline - Richard Arlen is reluctant to marry Jean Parker but doesn't want her to marry anyone else etc. 

This is bright and fun but then the film takes a detour and becomes about spies and a bomb prototype which doesn't really mesh with this other stuff because it's established Arlen's airline is crappy. I don't mind a serious detour but couldn't the airline have dovetailed into something more serious or tied in with honeymoon airline?

It moves fast, Arlen is fine and Parker good and the support cast includes Nils Asther and Marie Wilson. But it's an uneasy mix. Maxwell Shane and Richard Murphy are credited on the script and I wonder if they contributed to different things.

Script review - "Red Heat" (1988) by Walter Hill

Hard going. One of my least favourite Walter Hill scripts. The old leanness is gone replaced by this lumbersome thing, an attempt to recreate the success of Hill's 48 Hours - which to be blunt I wasn't that a big fan of either. But at least it had Eddie Murphy.

This one did have Arnold Schwarzenegger and to be fair the basic idea is excellent - a Russian cop comes to Chicago to arrest a crook and clashes with a Chicago cop. The sort of communism vs capitalism schtick worked well in Ninotchka and it's an excellent role for Arnie.

But the film fails to exploit it. It starts off well enough with Arnie being a bad ass in a bathhouse, losing his partner (McBain!) and being assigned to get the baddie (with some hot, emotionless sex with a fellow Russkie).

But then when the action goes to Chicago things go wonky. It takes far too long for Arnie to team up with the Chicago cop who is spectacularly uninteresting. I mean I guess Nick Nolte's character was uninteresting in 48 Hours but at least he had a girlfriend and inherent conflict against Eddie Murphy's character - cop vs crook and also (much less enjoyably) white vs black.

Here Jim Belushi is just a stock wise arse cop who plays by his own rules. So when Arnie comes over and plays by his own rules there's no conflict between them. Jim Belushi just doesn't like Arnie because he's Russian, which is crap, even in 1988, because the Russian is a cop taking down the drug dealer.

There are obvious places this could've gone to get the conflict - Belushi should've been a capitalist, who liked fancy clothes, or hated the Russians because of some Cold War thing (maybe his people were killed by Russians). But no - he thinks judges are too soft of crime, and crooks are bad... just like Arnie.

Also he doesn't bring anything to the party in terms of story - you could really cut him out of the whole film except for the last bit where he tips off Arnie where the baddy will be... but even this could've been done by someone else.

You think you're going to get some comedy of Arnie being tempted by a capitalist, free society - romance, religion, lots of money, nice suits, fantastic food... Have a girl try to seduce him. But nope they don't go for it.

So we're left with an unexciting story and some run of the mill action. It was a slog to get through.

Movie review - "Adventure Island" (1947) **1/2

Enjoyable south seas tale from a Robert Louis Stevenson novel I'm not that familiar with - The Ebb Tide. It's a solid story - three dissipates on a Pacific Island get a gig transporting a boat of champagne to Sydney; two of them decide to steal the cargo, leaving the third (Rory Calhoun) to form an alliance with the daughter (Rhonda Fleming) of the owner. Then they wind up at an island run by a religious maniac (Alan Napier) and have to escape.

You can see why Calhoun was snapped up by talent scouts and why his initial public appearance as Lana Turner's date called a stir - he's tall and handsome and has a bit of zing. But at this stage he was very awkward and uncomfortable on camera. The same goes for Rhonda Fleming who is hurt by the fact the version of the film I saw was in black and white (apparently there's a colour version).

They are attractive though and there's a strong support cast including Paul Kelly (who, like Calhoun, had been in prison), John Abbott (as a drunk) and Napier. And the local natives are even given a bit of a plot - it's only a little bit but it's more than many south sea films of this time.

The handling isn't very good but the script is solid - Maxwell Shane was Pine-Thomas' go-to guy and you can see why - and the story holds. And I like south sea movies.

Movie review - "Forced Landing" (1941) **

Pine-Thomas' second film isn't as good as its first despite many of the same crew (DOP, star, writer). In part due to the story but mostly because the handling is so flabby and dull.

The support cast is fine - J Carrol Naish and Nils Asther are on hand, as ally and baddy. There's also novelty in the female lead is played by Eva Gabor in her debut - she hadn't grown into her looks though.

Its set in a fictitious country. Arlen is a pilot there a la Only Angels Have Wings. He gets involved in some dodgy people.

It lacks humour, pace and action. I normally like these sort of films, set in the studio third world, but its dull.

Movie review - "Tripoli" (1950) ***

From the late 1940s Pine-Thomas increased their budgets to tackle the challenge of television - they would have bigger stars and often colour, although they remained action tales.

This one's a period piece about the Barbary War, which enjoyed a post war vogue in Hollywood. John Payne is plays a character based on the real life bloke who raised the American flag above the Arabs. Payne does sturdy work as the hero - I always liked him as an actor. He's matched with Maureen O'Hara, who actually has a character to play - a woman who has wound up living with an Arab prince and is trying to marry him for money. She's got some good banter with maid Connie Gilchrist and Payne, even if there is that taming-of-the-spitfire stuff with slight rape-y overtones.

The film was directed by Will Price, O'Haras husband who she slagged off in her memoirs as being a drunken, spongeing closeted gay. But he does a decent job - or the Pine Thomas team was just super smooth.

There's enjoyable colour and production values and a support cast including Phil Terry and Alan Napier. Most of all there's Howard da Silva as a local mercenary, engaging and unscrupulous and hugely likeable - it's one of his best performances. Unpretentious and the slightly novel setting is of interest.

Movie review - "Power Dive" (1941) **1/2

The first film from Pine-Thomas is a fast paced unpretentious programmer that got the company off too a good start. It's only an hour, it moves along, the handling is fine, the story is derivative but dramatic. Richard Arlen is a test pilot who loves Jean Parker whose father wants to develop a design; Arlen's brother Don Castle also loves Parker.

Good basic conflict- brothers in love with the same woman. Parker is given something to do because she represents her father. This formula would be repeated many times by Pine-Thomas, including the tough guy profession setting, a random being killed (another pilot - while his wife sits and senses it... the best scene in the film).

I don't want to over praise this but the production values are good for a B - the actors decent (Castle smiles too much), the story holds. You can see why people liked it.

Movie review - "The Undefeated" (1969) **

A lot of John Wayne's films around this time have lingered in the memory of Western fans - True Grit, The Green Berets, Big Jake, Chisum. Not this one despite Rock Hudson supporting and a fantastic central idea.

Because it's not very good. The idea is amazing - based on the true life adventures of a Confederate troop who refuse to surrender and go down south to Mexico and try to enlist in Maximilian's army. But the film wastes it. Hudson is the Confederate, and he and Wayne have a little bit of history but not much - even though Wayne was on the Union side he just happens to be down in Mexico when they cross.

Why not make him pursue Hudson? Or be Hudson's enemy?

The issues raised in the central idea is ignored. Slavery is pretty much entirely ignored - the only black character is a caricatured black carpetbagger who is Bad (smoking a cigar). The sense of loss these people must have felt is ignored.

Even though its 1969 the film still offers 1941 solutions from Virginia City - to wit, that North and South manage to put aside their differences by taking on Mexicans. Its even worse here because the Americans are in Mexico - and the Southerners were trying to assist Maximilian who was a foreign occupier.

Oh and there's hardly any French characters. When the Southerners rock up the French have lost to the Mexicans, who are the baddies. Oh I guess there's some French baddies ish at the end who the Americans need to beat but since we don't really know any of them it doesn't mean anything.

There's a vaguely progressive subplot about Hudson's daughter being flirted with by Wayne's adopted son, a Cherokee, who the Southerners don't like but event this isn't developed well. Nor is the romance between Wayne and Hudson's sister in law. It's a really undramatic, unexciting screenplay.

Director Andrew McLaglen doesn't cover himself in glory either. There's a few sequences where he seems to be trying to be John Ford, which Ford would've done well - like a 4th of July BBQ which ends in a brawl - but he can't pull it off. There is the occasional interesting visual flourish like watching Mexicans execute the French, and the support cast has some interesting names, like John Agar, Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jnr.

This storyline deserved much better treatment.

Movie review - "Alaska Highway" (1943) **

Pine-Thomas aren't a production company that well remembered today but they chugged along for 15 years or so turning out mostly low budget action films which Paramount released - John Payne, Ronald Reagan, Rhonda Fleming and so on would be in them.

They made a bunch with Richard Arlen, who I didn't know much about - he was in Wings. Arlen's an amiable virile type, a little heavy set.

This is an pretentious programmer which sheds some light on people who build highways in the war. They're all two fisted and tough - it reminded me of Warner Bros films like Manpower. They basic concept is good solid drama - dad runs the operation, his two sons do it and they both love the same gal (Jean Parker, a Pine Thomas favourite).  The film only clocks in at 60 minutes but the filmmakers still throw in a subplot  about some comic relief co workers, one of whom wants to get married.

It moves fast, there's always something happening, and I like highway workers got their own propaganda film.

Script review - "Wild Bill" by Walter Hill

I found this very hard going. Long, boring, pointless. Why write it? Why film it? Why finance it? I just don't get why they thought anyone would see it. There's lots of action and shoot outs at the beginning but this is repetitive - just Wild Bill killing people in shoot outs. Calamity Jane is cool but her part isn't very big. I liked the language but after a while it became boring because there wasn't a story. Bill is reflective. McCall threatens to kill him, and is shooed away, and finally kills him... Big deal. It feels like a play, with a lot of people standing around a saloon talking. It's just boring.

Script review - "Tales from the Crypt: Deadline" (1991) by Walter Hill & Mae Woods (warning: spoilers)

Read this because it was co written by Hill - have never seen the show. Surprisingly wordy for something with Hill's name on it but this was his wordy phase. Good tight story. Lots of noir elements - alcoholic journo, femme fetale, sleeping wife, twist ending (the murder he's investigating is of a woman he's sleeping with, killed by her cuckolded husband because she's cheating).

Movie review - "Untamed" (1955) **

Fairly terrible CinemaScope set in South Africa, which no one seems to remember with much fondness. The South African scenery is pretty, it's fun to see how Susan Hayward went on location and not Tyrone Power, and it's interesting to observe the treatment Fox gave South African history - it's about the Great Trek, with Tyrone Power as a passionate Boer, and Hayward as the Irish lass who loves him, and the Zulus attacking like Indians. It's packed full of Western tropes: there's a wagon train (which was a real thing its got to be said), pioneers, natives who are vicious and loyal, outlaws, shoot outs, and lots of American actors.

But it doesn't work dramatically. The ingredients are there - pioneers in a strange land, action, a feisty heroine, dashing hero, treacherous man who loves the hero, a tree falls on someone resulting in a leg amputation, gossipy maids. But it doesn't come together.

Hayward doesn't seem particularly engaged in what's going on - thought I'm not a major fan (admirers of her may enjoy this more). The film never seems certain how Bad to make her character. She chases after Power a lot but what drives her really? Power? Hunger? Wealth? There are allusions to Scarlett O'Hara but O'hara's dramatic line was clean and clear - get Ashley, survive and thrive. O'Hara was put through the ringer and she got through it through determination and cunning. Hayward isn't really - there's a potato famine handled mostly off screen via exposition, a bit of animal shoot outs, some rain... there's no passion. No danger. She becomes rich in five seconds by getting a diamond - then loses it all somehow. (I wasn't sure how).

And no spark with Power. His character seems clear enough - a Dutch patriot. Okay sure Power never seems remotely Dutch but there were worst miscastings around this time and Power was a big star. More problematic is it's clear he only cares about his country and not about Hayward. He bangs her in Ireland but then takes off. She turns up in South Africa, he bangs her again then takes off again. He arrives in Cape Town where she's rich and connected which makes her like her... he bangs her again but won't commit. He finds out she's got his kid and gets possessive about the kid but not her. He takes off again, then is involved in a final shoot out. He's meant to give up fighting for Hayward at the end but we never believe it not for a second -he's clearly not into her. Which may be true to character but makes a very unsatisfying movie. Rhett wanted Scarlett.

(NB I had the same problem with another Fox epic, Forever Amber).

All my sympathy went to Richard Egan, the nominal villain, playing a character who loves Hayward, who works for her despite her loving Power, who loses a leg in a storm and becomes an outlaw. (To be fair he's not very nice to the adoring native girl who loves him, Rita Moreno). Really Power should've played Egan's part which should've been the hero - make the Power character this selfish prat who treats Hayward badly and at the end she goes for the guy who's loved her all along.

Egan isn't bad in a role turned down by Victor Mature - he looks like a man of action. Agnes Moorehead livens up her scenes. No one else gets much of a look in.

Movie review - "Wicked City" (1949) **1/2

Enjoyable old melodrama was shot in France with French talent but done in English. It stars the husband and wife team of Jean Pierre Aumont and Maria Montez. Aumont is fine - I'm not a big fan of him as an actor but he's okay.

The surprise is Montez who is actually good - maybe "competent" is more accurate, but she's certainly more natural and skilled than in her famous Universal movies. She's a vixen who romances sailor Aumont then is responsible for him being knocked out. He goes off to romance Lili Palmer (giving the best performance in the film) then comes back to get revenge on Montez, and go to prison.

There's some decent seaside atmosphere, and interesting use of whistling "Jingle Bells".

Movie review - "The Amazing Mr X" (1948) *** (warning: spoilers)

A perfectly decent gaslighting-a-widow movie, complete with some stylish photography, an old dark house on a cliff top and crashing waves belog. Lynn Bari isn't entirely well cast as the widow - she's accomplished as always but just seems too inherently sensible for the role of someone losing her mind. She might've been better off swapping roles with the more fragile seeming Cathy O'Donnell who plays her sister.

Richard Carlson is the guy who likes Bari. The film definitely would've been better off had he played someone more evil. Turhan Bey gives one of his best performances as a spiritualist who may be good or bad... he turns out to be bad, but reforming. Donald Curtis is very good as the slimy husband.

Not a classic but a pretty good movie.

Script review - "The Force Awakens" by JJ Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan

I liked this a lot less as a read than as a film - so much of it's pleasures as a film for me came from seeing how they brought back Leia, Luke, Han, Chewis, C3PO, R2, the Falcon. That's not as good on screen.

Kylo Ren is a strong character as is Rey. The stuff around them is good. Finn has an interesting-ish journey. Poe feels like a nothing.

The First Order being villainous and activated again feels like reheating food - which I guess a lot of this was. It was a good film - I'm just becoming more aware of its faults.

Movie review - "The Last Command" (1955) **1/2

Herbert Yates of Republic foolishly wouldn't give John Wayne what he wanted to make his Alamo picture, ending their relationship and thus losing Republic's one big star. Yates pushed ahead with his own Alamo movie - one that focuses on Jim Bowie.

Bowie is played by Sterling Hayden, a tall actor with a deep voice who I've never been that much of a fan of despite his iconic status and colourful personal life. He's quite well cast as Bowie though.

The film itself is choppy and not particularly well handled (it was Frank Lloyd's last movie). It covers a few years, starting when Bowie is trying to keep out of the conflict, not being a big fan of Texians; he loses his family to plague off screen and eventually becomes radicalised I guess you could say. He takes part in a fight or two then winds up at the Alamo.

Too much screen time is spent on a Mexican woman who pants after Bowie, played by Anna Marie Alberghetti. I enjoyed Arthur Hunnicutt's Davy Crockett and wish he'd been given more screen time. Ditto for Ernest Borgnine's settler. Richard Carlson's Travis was so-so.

Things pick up once everyone gets to the Alamo - really I wish the whole film had been set there. Maybe the filmmakers were worried about the female audience, devoting so much time to Alberghetti's character - but they could've just had her meet Bowie there. It was dramatically unsatisfactory.

The movie gets better as it goes along and there's some decent production value for Republic. It's not unsympathetic to Santa Anna.

Sterling Hayden Top Ten

Hayden's an interesting actor. A fascinating personal story - a sailor who was offered a film contract after someone saw his photo, leaping straight to leading roles and marriage to Madeleine Carroll, enlisting in the army and becoming a genuine hero, naming names and forever regretting it, taking off on a yacht and travelling the world. becoming a cult icon.

He never seemed to like acting much - he was more into writing and sailing - but attracted the interest of some big fans like Kubrick. Russell Crowe once said he based his LA Confidential performance on Hayden.

Is it possible to do a top ten? In no particular order:
1) Dr Strangelove (1964) - Hayden great fun as a lunatic general
2) The Asphalt Jungle (1950) - I'm surprised Hayden's career didn't get more of a boost after this Huston work... but I guess he was never out of work after it and this really established him in the fifties. Shame he never worked with Huston again - he could've easily fitted into Moby Dick or Roots of Heaven.
3) The Killing (1956) - more Kubrick, Hayden very effective.
4) The Last Command (1955) - Hayden as Jim Bowie in an enjoyable version of the Alamo.
5) The Long Goodbye (1973) - superb Hayden cameo as a drunk. I wish he'd worked more with Altman.
6) The Godfather (1972) - is it cheating to have this in here? I would argue Hayden's work still impresses.
7) The Star (1952) - Hayden was masculine and limited - I'm surprised he wasn't used more as a leading man in melodramas like this.
8) Johnny Guitar (1954) - it's really a Joan Crawford-Mercedes McCambridge film but Hayden impresses.
9) Prince Valiant (1954) - now I'm starting to strain! I put this in because it's so random.
10) King of the Gypsies (1978) - Hayden wild and weird.

Book review - "Robur the Conqueror" by Jules Verne

A short novel that Richard Matheson later combined with its sequel Master of the World to make an AIP Vincent Price film of the same name. This has more meat than the sequel - a crazy genius, Robur (a Captain Nemo type) talks at a balloonist conference. They mock him so he later abducts two of them in his super ship, the Albatross. This annoys the two men so much they arrange to sabotage the boat. Then, in a neat twist, they don't report it but try to rip off the design. Robur comes looking for revenge. That's a decent story even though as usual Verne spends more time describing places they fly over than dramatising the plot.  Not bad - fast paced.

Book review - "Master of the World" (1904) by Jules Verne

Weird book. Like many a Verne novel it starts with strange sightings/things happening... a man investigates, Strock, he pokes around some places, he gets some letters warning him off, then discovers a mighty ship/aeroplane/sub driven by the Master of the World aka Robur from the previous novel (which Verne politely recaps). Just when you think it's getting good though, some lightning hits the ship, it crashes, Strock escapes and that's about it. What an anti-climax! The ship does have a cool name "The Terror".

Movie review - "Solo: A Star Wars Story" (2018) ** (warning: spoilers)

I wanted to love this - partly because it's Star Wars, but also because I like that the producer sided with the director and I love Lawrence Kasdan, and have a soft spot for Ron Howard.

But it doesn't work. All the way though watching this I kept saying to myself, "this just doesn't work".

It should have. I mean, there's a lot of good material to play with - Chewbacca, the wookies, the growth of the Empire, Jabba, Greedo, the bounty hunters, Lando, the Kessel run, becoming a smuggler.

And bits of this were good. The special effects. Donald Glover was terrific. Woody Harrelson was good, despite a distracting cow lick on his wig.  I loved the way Han met Chewbacca. I laughed at Lando recording his memoirs and the robot insisting Lando wanted her. I enjoyed the odd nod to the prequels.

But the handling was sloppy. The action scenes lack excitement and verve (Howard's never been a great action director). The cinematography was murky.

The story and script was poor. I was often confused about what was going on. There was a lot of constant exposition

I kept going "you could cut that bit... and that bit". You didn't need to see that opening scene on Corellia. Or really the stuff in the Imperial army (I wonder if there was meant to be more of this, but it was removed after The Force Awakens). Or the whole train hijack sequence - they introduce two characters (one of whom, a wise cracking pilot creature, seems like is a rip off of the raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy). The film doesn't really start until Han and his gang go looking for fuel.

There's no real villain until Dryden Vos gets nasty at the end. (They set up a baddy at the beginning and never use her again. Imperial troops pop up every now and then and leave.)

There's no real stakes after the half way point - the first half is all about getting Emilia Clarke, but then Han meets her so the stakes are over. Then it's about paying off a debt...?

Alden Ehrenreich was okay in an impossible role - he's good looks and presence, even if he doesn't have that thing Harrison Ford did, the combination of stress and cockiness.

Emilia Clarke is alright. She doesn't have much of a role to play - she's done Bad Things but that's about it. She and Ehrenreich don't have much chemistry. Why no resolution with her character's story? Why not kill her? We don't want to see her again. Why bring in Darth Maul at the eleventh hour? What was that supposed to do?

This simply wasn't very good.

Book review - "Reach for the Top: The Turbulent Life of Laurence Harvey" by Anne Sinai

I first became familiar with Laurence Harvey via David Shipman's entry on him in the book The Great Movie Stars. Shipman really tore into him, slagging his acting, quoting people who worked with him and hated him, saying he was a male prostitute.

I get Harvey was annoying. He was relentlessly pushy and ambitious. He spruiked himself mercilessly. He was arrogant and could deliver terrible performances. He never really had a strong box office appeal. He could be bitchy and really cruel. He was chronically unfaithful to people. He spent money like it was going out of fashion. He was a wanker. He hit Hermoine Baddley. He cheated on his partners.

And yet... and yet...

He worked really hard. He constantly went back to the stage even when it cost him film money. He always tried different things - producing, directing. He pushed. He experimented. Some of his performances on film were superb - not just Room at the Top but also The Alamo. (Around the same time he'd be so terrible in Expresso Bongo and The Long and the Short and The Tall.)

Yes he did hook up with women and men who were older and richer than he and could've helped his career - but he seemed to genuinely like them. I think he was attracted to maturity and success. People didn't have to help him as much as he did. He was handsome; he must've been good company when in the right mood.

He had a fascinating life and career. Born in Lithuania, he moved to South Africa as a young boy and grew up in Jo'burg. He didn't like it much and entered the army as soon as he could and entertained the troops - alongside Sid James, who hated him. Then it was off to RADA, which he left soon for Manchester Rep. He was tall, good looking and studied hard, as well as being ambitious - he was working reasonably steadily almost straight away, although as someone who spent money as soon as he earned it he was always whingeing about his lack of progress. What really got things going for him was James Woolf of Romulus - he fell in love with Harvey and thought he was going to be a big star.

Harvey achieved acclaim at Stratford Upon Avon. He was noticed for films like Cairo Road and also Romeo and Juliet; he was in a terrible Hollywood film, King Richard and the Crusades but redeemed himself in Romulus films like I Am Camera and The Silent Enemy. He was also in Storm Over the Nile. He was terrible in Three Men on a Boat but Room at the Top made him an international name.

The films that followed were varied but often interesting - The Alamo, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm. He directed on stage and film (The Ceremony) and made a lot of money out of Darling. His star faded in the late 60s and he died relatively young.

The book is well done though frustratingly lacking in footnotes. It feels as though it had a lot of co operation from his family.

A really interesting actor.