Movie review - "Hilda Crane" (1956) **

20th Century Fox seemed to make a bunch of CinemaScope melodramas in the 1950s - tales of infidelity and angst in the middle classes, often based on best sellers: The View from Pompey's Head, The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, Ten North Frederick, Peyton Place.

This was written and directed by Philip Dunne, who made several of the aforementioned films, and was based on a play which wasn't that popular. You actually wonder why Fox made it - perhaps because it has a pretty good central female role, the title character, who has been divorced twice and returns to her small town. Apparently Susan Hayward was set to play it, and really she probably should have... instead they get Jean Simmons, who I've never been wild about, although some people love her.

The movie falls between two stools - it's not insightful and skilful enough to be an actually good movie, and not enough happens for it to be trashy fun.

The potential is there for either. The set up is promising ish - a twice divorced female lead returning to a small town... that has novelty. Everyone thinks she's a slut, especially mom... you could do something with that. She's torn between a professor she loved and a local boy... that's great.

But it all feels underwhelming. Star power is badly lacking - you've got Simmons, Jean Pierre Aumont and Guy Madison, plus Judith Evelyn as mother and Evelyn Varden as Madison's mother.

Varden is the one who really clicks - she plays the role as a controlling bitch. You know where she's coming from, you get the character.

Evelyn's character  is more confusing - she's kind of ashamed of her daughter and it's all kind of her fault, but the punches are pulled. She gets too close to Varden's character at times but when she's different she's just bland. Maybe she needed to be more passive aggressive.

Madison is too handsome, too wealthy, too understanding, too perfect. Really he needed to be dull or less good looking. I know it's Hollywood but he's too much of a viable candidate. You never get why Simmons would go for Aumont, with his funny head and lecherous ways. Aumont needed to be dangerous, sexy, a bad boy... Madison a good dull boy. Or an older guy... that could've worked... someone a bit old, insecure about Hilda. Or really young. It just needed more differentiation.

And there's no meat to the drama. Varden has a heart attack but she deserves it. Simmons tries to kill herself but fails. She doesn't cheat. It needed more story. Or just needed to be better done.

Movie review - "Before I Wake" (2016) **1/2

I love Mike Flanagan's direction - spooky atmosphere, creepy dead kids, weird houses, emphasis on emotions. The story feels a little slight after a strong beginning and Kate Bosworth doesn't really have the chops to carry off the film (though she's playing someone grieving so her lack of expression kind of helps). Thomas Jane's hair is distracting and I was confused by the ending.

Movie review - "Calling Northside 777" (1948) ***

This would've have had more impact after the war when things like location filming had more novelty - not to mention the 'gee whiz' treatment of technological marvels like being able to blow up the size of a photo and lie detectors.

James Stewart is good value as the reporter who gradually becomes convinced of the innocence of Richard Conte, gaoled for shooting a cop in Chicago. Conte's got the most noble, suffering pious immigrant washerwoman mother you saw outside an MGM film. He's also got an exwife who Stewart scolds for remarrying - I'm noticing a misogynist strand in these Fox films (to reinforce this, the main reason Conte is in prison is the lying testimony of an old drunken woman). (To be fair though this was based on truth.)

Helen Walker does what she can with the role of Stewart's wife, who is a sounding board. Stewart has a lot of charisma though I laughed at the final shot of him standing enigmatically, wind flapping around him.

A decent enough movie. A film of its time but the basic story is fine.

Movie review - "The Desert Fox" (1951) ***1/2

This starts marvellously, with a brilliant pre credit sequence of British soldiers trying to assassinate Rommel, but then for me never quite got its rhythm. I love the attempt at quality - and some of it was great: the scenes where Everett Sloane threatens James Mason, the acting, the fact they didn't sell out with the casting (there's no bland juveniles, Jessica Tandy plays the wife, Cedric Hardwicke plays a German), the scene where Mason farewells Tandy, the assassination attempt at Hitler. I recognise it was a tricky film to make so soon after the war.

But it felt clunky to me. Nunnally Johnson's script doesnt quite get its groove in the middle - it feels patchy with re-cappy dialogue. I think Johnson did a good job under difficult conditions.

Movie review - "Purple Noon" (1960) **** (warning: spoilers)

The film that made Alain Delon an international star and no wonder - his youthful beauty and charm are used to superb effect in this thriller. It's been a while since I saw The Talented Mr Ripley but from memory this version is much better - less fat on it, more confident. Delon is more animated and better than Matt Damon.

Maurice Roget is extremey good too and Marie Laforet is stunning. There's some visually fantastic scenes like Delon and Roget on the yacht, particular Delon when the water is choppy.

There's plenty of twists, near misses, excellent locations and decadent atmosphere. I didn't mind that Delon got caught at the end, that was fine. He'll figure out a way to get out of it.

Aside - many French movies show the police to be very efficient. That's the case here.

Movie review - "Hell and High Water" (1954) **

Dull submarine film which one guesses was only made because submarines would look cool in CinemaScope. The set up is dumb - a scientist who has disappeared hires Richard Widmark to captain a sub (a whole sub!) to follow another sub around to prove that the Chinese Commies have an atomic bomb.

I struggled with the concept of a mercenary sub especially as it was kind of pointless story wise - why not just have it as a US navy mission? So Widmark can be cynical and discover patriotism?

Why hold off the reveal that Bella Darvi is the scientist's daughter? There's no shock, no surprise - you assume she was anyway.

Directed  by Sam Fuller who didn't like the result and he was right. Bella Darvi is the girl.

The one good sequence is when it's all red on the sub and there's no noise except for some siren and Widmark and Darvi make out.

Victor Francen's scientist was lacking in mystery and interest. Darvi was good looking but that's about it.

Movie revew - "Fourteen Hours" (1951) ***

This starts off fantastically -Richard Basehart (very good)  walks out on the ledge of a building, sending everyone into a tizz. Passing cop Paul Douglas tries to talk him down while he gets visits from shrinks, another cop, the guy's parents.

But the thing is the movie doesn't really have anywhere to go. The movie is about finding out The Reason Why He's On the Ledge - and because it's the early 50s you can guess it'll be because his parents were to blame, and because it's 20th Century Fox you can guess the parent was a woman (Zanuck's films had this misogynistic streak), and when Agnes Moorehead turns up as mom it's like "there we go"... the macguffin is the fact Moorehead wrong raised Basehart to hate his father (Robert Keith).

I get divorce does terrible things to children but my sympathy with Basehart did ebb over time. Maybe it's to do with the fact that Basehart, who is excellent, was 36 when he made the film and he looks it. It's sort of made me go "alright already" when better casting might have been a young nervy actor, like James Dean (or equivalent).

Also the subplots aren't that memorable. Grace Kelly gets one as a woman on her way to divorce husband James Warren. Kelly doesn't look as though she's a star here - she's actor-y and pretty enough, there's no magic. She is far too good looking for Warren and their story is dull - she's distracted in a lawyer's office then they decide to give it another try. (This film would be loved by Catholics - it's all about preventing suicide and the evils of divorce).

The other one involves Jeffrey Hunter and Debra Paget, office workers who meet, and Hunter uses it as an excuse to flirt with Paget. This is treated seriously.

Apparently Howard Hawks was offered this and wanted to do it as a comedy, so Fox went with Henry Hathaway instead. Hathaway's direction is excellent - brisk, fast moving, lots of cuts, skilful use of location footage. But I think it would have worked better as  a comedy. Around the edges you see glimpses of a more interesting film - an evangelist who approaches the man, Moorehead playing up for the cameras, people waiting impatiently to jump. I feel it need a more cynical, satirical edge - maybe not go as hard core as Ace in the Hole but along those lines. Or at least a few more subplots - two wasn't enough - or at least some more twists in the two that are there. As it is Hunter just asks out Paget the end, and Kelly and her husband decide to get back together the end.

Douglas is very good, as is Howard da Silva as a fellow cop. Martin Gabel is perhaps creepier than he was intended to be as a shrink.

Book review - "Dragon Teeth" by Michael Crichton

Posthumously published novel by Crichton which apparently he started in the 70s - it's in the vein of The Great Train Robbery or Eaters of the Dead, a historical romp. It's set during the bone wars, a period of time about which I knew little but sounds fascinating - the late 19th century when American paleontologists competed against each other on digs in the American west.

The first section of this I found stiff - the paleontologist characters weren't that interesting, neither was the hero. But it got better once the hero went out on a dig and got cut off, and gets great when he's stranded in Deadwood. The main baddy isn't that memorable, nor is the girl (Crichton was never that good on creating memorable characters) but Wyatt Earp pops up at the end and livens up everything. He's one of Crichton's most effective characterisations. 

There's lots of spooky tension in the second half and effective double crosses as the hero tries to salvage the bones. This is first rate stuff.

Crichton's writing most comes alive when he's done his research - say, on shoot outs in the main street of town, the law and economy of Deadwood, digging, the technology of early photography. This is when the book is at its best, that and tension/suspense. Curiously, he's not that good describing action.

But a book I'm glad I read which really picked up in the second half.

Movie review - "Always Another Dawn" (1948) ** (warning: spoilers)

The McCreadie Brothers made three features in Australia after the war, at a time when that was rare. This is possibly the best known, the story of a man who joins the Navy and then dies in battle.

He's played by Charles Tingwell who was relatively green at the time but is an ideal leading man - handsome, good voice and posture, all that stuff. He really should have gone to London straight after this I think he would've done well - he did well when he went a decade later, mind, but they made less films by then.

This had a creaky simplistic script - there's not much in the way of characterisation or story. Tingwell is a nice young man with a nice mother who goes off to war, has a long training montage, makes a friend in Guy Doleman.

Everyone is bland - Tingwell doesn't seem like a real person, he's more Christ like. Doleman plays someone who is a bit bitter then learns not to be bitter because sacrifcing yourself is good. Betty McDowall is a perfect girlfriend. Queenie Ashton's mother character is just a smiling mother. Everyone just sort of nods and accepts people will die.

It's got a weird sort of tone. Fatalistic. Dreamy. There's no fire in the belly. No anger, conflict or sex. There is flowery voice over. It's like everyone has taken a pill and is drifting off to fate.

The film only really comes alive when Tingwell romances McDowall because that feels more real and as if there's stakes. I also liked the final battle, because there's some build up and it looks authentic.

It is noticeable for the co operation of the navy which results in some decent second unit footage. There's training sequences, a boxing match, scenes of sailors marching. Actually there's so much of this it feels at times they're padding out the running time. (To accentuate this three's also a piano recital... this was the 75 minute version apparently there's a longer one out there!)

There's some humour in one of the sailors is so obviously camp. The film could have done with more of it.

Tingwell is an excellent leading man. The film's a fascinating time capsule.

Book review - "Custer" by Larry McMurtry (2012)

I once read a lot of McMurtry then got out of the habit - I think when I read less fiction - so it was good to revisit this "short life" of the famous idiotic general. It's got a shaggy dog style and feels like a chat; I didn't discover anything new but it was entertaining. Some irritating errors - like Jeff Chandler never played Buffalo Bill that was Joel McCrea, and Kitchener's revenge against the Mahdi was over a decade after Khartoum. But enjoyable.

Movie review - "Two Men in Town" (1973) *** (warning: spoilers)

Jean Gabin prolonged his career by teaming with younger stars - this one reunites him with Alain Delon, who also produced. It's a pretty good crime melodrama - it seems to have been influenced by the Warner Bros gangster flicks of the 30s and 40s. You could imagine, say, John Garfield and Edward G Robinson doing it.

Delon gets out of prison and comes under the watch of parole officer Gabin. Delon is tempted by his old gang, who include Victor Lanoux... and young punk Gerard Depardieu. I wish these two had more screen time because they're great.

This has some silly moments - montages of Delon frolicking - not enough action, and occasionally drags. But a lot of it is good too - the ending, with Delon going to the guillotine, is great. It has a down beat fatalistic mood that is effective, even it at times it seems shot like a TV movie.

Delon is a bit pretty at times but very effective. Gabin has a great sad eyed look. Mimsy Farmer pops up as Delon's second girlfriend (he has one who waits for him when he's in prison but is killed off quite quick)..

Movie review - "Up to His Ears" (1965) **1/2

This was so frustrating because so much was good about it - fantastic locations, colour, action, stunts, plus Jean Paul Belmondo having a great time, ditto Ursula Andress. They make a great on screen couple. The action gets particularly good once she joins him on his adventures.

But it's a dumb story. That Man from Rio was simple, and clear - girl's father goes missing, boyfriend helps out. Sympathetic protagonist, strong stakes, clear goal. This is a mess - Belmondo is a a millionaire who is bored so tries to kill himself but fails - he arranges for someone to kill him then changes his mind.

I'm not a big fan of this over used plot, especially not here - who cares about a bored millionaire? They just should have had his relatives try to kill him.

Andress is stunning and good fun. Belmondo too. The support cast all go for it.

This is set in the present day but at times feels like it's the 19th century. It's so frustrating because so much of this is good.

Movie review - "Smithy" (1946) ***1/2

Ken G Hall's sole dramatic feature after World War Two is a very polished, smooth piece of entertainment, typical of movies of the time, and make you (well, me, at any rate) really annoyed his talents went to waste after World War Two. He really knew how to make solid commercial films and he was at his peak in the 1940s.

Ron Randell was picked over Peter Finch to play the lead, and while Randell never became the star Finch did, I think it was the right decision - Randell had more dash, better looks, more obvious star charisma. He's very bright, and gives a good performance - I think he lost something without his Australian accent.

It's fun to see Billy Hughes playing himself and Charles Tingwell having a few lines at the beginning as an air traffic controller.

The script isn't perfect but then the story is tricky. It's propaganda and pro Smithy and many people were alive - and it's very biopic-y with lots of "I tell you it can't be done", and foreshadowing dialogue about how Smithy won't be appreciated in his life and about the threat of Japan (with Alec Kellaway talking about "those little yellow...").

A lot of this is clunky - it's hard to say who contributed to what in the script but I'm guessing Hall was responsible for the chunk since Alec Coppel wrote it with him. It's not bad, just clunky, with Greek chorus comments by Joe Valli. A lot of events are referred to that you really need prior knowledge of - such as the death of Charles Ulm, and of the two pilots who died searching for Smithy when the latter crashed.

Also flying across the ocean was dangerous and involved enormous skill but when you watch it, it's basically someone sitting in a cockpit. It's hard to make that too interesting. There is the cool bit where his co pilot got out on the wing to fix something up, but Smithy didn't get to do that.

I liked how they introduced a female, Kay, to help Smithy in America, giving the piece some female interest in the first half (I was confused when Kellaway said to her "does he know?" Know what? She later got married... did she have a fiancee at the time?)

There's some cute things like Smithy giving Muriel Steinbeck his autograph when she thinks he's a messenger boy - that's a good meet cute. Other stuff is less fun like Smith sexually harassing a nurse at the beginning asking for a back rub (mind you this is consistent with many scenes of the time meant to be charming). I loved the little kids talking about Smitty - it's a real insight into 1946 Australia.

The film is stronger in the second half when it gets more serious and down beat. I feel Hall really related to the struggles of Smithy - his attempts to monetise something which was so patently the future, his battles with bankers and backers.

John Tate is very good as Ulm, and Muriel Steinbeck strong as Mrs Smithy. Joy Nicholls is awkward as Kay. Kellaway is always reliable as an American backer.

I think Hall's great film was Dad and Dave Come to Town but this is definitely up there as well.

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

One of the rare Australian films of the 1950s this holds up pretty well, helped considerably by some stunning location filming at Thursday Island - even now, an under-filmed part of Australia.

The plot is perfectly serviceable - a dead body is plucked out of the ocean by pearler Chips Rafferty, who goes on to investigate a people smuggling racket. Really, Rafferty should have had more of a connection to the dead man -he could've been someone that Rafferty knew, or had fired. Or he should have been suspected of the man's death - so he had a stake in the investigation. As it is, the local authorities ask him to help out and he does... which didn't feel right. I mean, Rafferty does have a business to run.

There's lots of good ideas which aren't developed. Charles Tingwell is the playboy owner of the company run by Rafferty - that's good conflict, as is Rafferty's underling Rod Taylor (playing an American) instinctively not liking him, and giving Rafferty a good looking daughter (Ilma Adey). You're set to watch a love triangle between Adey, Taylor and Tingwell but it never happens. You're also set to watch Taylor turn out to be a baddy but that doesn't happen either.

In actual fact, Taylor is wasted in the film - you could cut him out and nothing would change. Indeed the film would be better because Tingwell and Adey would have more to do. Nothing wrong with Rod Taylor's performance, he totally suits the world of the film - rugged, tough, drinking beer and punching out Lloyd Berrell. It's just his character is superfluous - they should have made him a baddy or at least a rival for Adey.

The cast is strong. Rafferty's role is ideal for him and Tingwell and Taylor are a handsome pair of louts, while Adey is gorgeous. Adey and Tingwell make a cute couple - frequently running around in their swimmers. Lloyd Berrell is excellent in support. Adey is inexperienced but is a relaxed presence.

The visuals are the main attraction - native dances, jettys, beautiful seas, luggers, turtles, swamps, pearls, old houses. The photography is beautiful. I loved old style Aussie things like the way Rafferty smoked a cigarette.

The scene where Rafferty is trapped underwater and rescued by Tingwell isn't that exciting - sequences under water often aren't.  But I did like Rafferty and Tingwell rescuing Adey and spearing baddies.

It has the racial sensitivity of the time - the baddies are foreign whites or half castes; there's a native girl who is meant to clean Tingwell's house who "always has her boyfriends around" (she has a crisis of conscience at church like a good noble savage).

Thoughts on Albert Finney

Have a confession to make - I really hope this doesn't come across as mean spirited by... I've never been a big fan of Albert Finney. In Tom Jones he's sensational. Ditto Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

Too often he was boorish - as in Two for the Road he yells at Audrey Hepburn all the time. Or mannered - as in Murder on the Orient Express. Or he was in parts I wish someone else had played - like Skyfall in a role clearly written for Sean Connery. Or cameos where you wished it was a bigger star - like The Bourne Ultimatum or Oceans 12.

But I love how he took chances, worked with new directors, had great taste. He was wonderfully subtle in films like A Man With No Importance. A fine, fine actor. Not a legend, at least not to me, but he had a lot of integrity and did a lot of good work.

Movie review - "Le Samourai" (1967) ***1/2

Famous action film which I've wanted to see for a while because it was so influential on the works of filmmakers like, notably Walter Hill and Michael Mann. You can see it all over this - the minimal dialogue, the wide framing, the taciturn hero.

I was surprised how much this seemed to borrow from This Gun for Hire - it's basically got the same plot: a hitman does an assassination, is chased by a cop, crosses with a girl, is double crossed by his bosses and goes looking for revenge.

The role of the girl is split between black Caty Rosier, a singer, and the seriously gorgeous Nathalie Delon. I feel this was a mistake and splits the film's focus.

The cops are very professional and solid.

I think I would have liked this more had it not been copied so much. Delon looks a little silly in his fedora and trenchcoat. It is a realised piece though - the whole film I mean.

TV review - "Homecoming" (2018) ***

Entertaining thriller, with enjoyable Hitchcock touches (the music, focusing) and Julia Roberts always brings it - actually all the acting is good. The story is solid, it's just rather mercilessly strung out even at 30 minute eps. This should have been a feature.

Book review - "The Maltese Falcon" by Dashiell Hammett

This will sound dim but I was struck how faithful the 1940 film adaptation was to this - the structure, dialogue, characters. It really got it - sometimes cut and pasted. And why not? The original book is good - it was silly they changed it.

This has aged well in part because Sam Spade is such a prick - no Philip Marlowe like honor for him, he mostly tracks down the killer of his partner because it's bad for business. He's cynical and full of great lines.

I do get confused by the plot of this, always have - there's lots of talk about the action of people we don't see like Flloyd Thursby and the sea captain.

But the characters we do meet are fantastic - Spade of course but also the partner's cheating wife, Gutman, Joel Cairo, Wilfred, Bridget O'Shaugnessy (who Spade makes take her clothes off for a search).

Movie review - "Island in the Sun" (1957) ***

Darryl Zanuck's first independent production doesn't hold much critical cache - everyone takes pot shots at it, I think because it deals with race in 1957. Sure, absolutely, but it still deals with them, and this was a gutsy film to make at the time.

It was shot in the West Indies and looks amazing - beaches, carnivals, markets, colonial houses, parties. The cast is mostly B list but solid - Joan Collins, John Williams, Michael Rennie, John Justin, Harry Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge, Joan Fontaine, Stephen Boyd. I'm surprised Clifton Webb isn't in this.

Dandrige looks sensational but doesn't have much of a character to play - her plot needed a twist (black girl and white guy... I guess the fact the two of them have a happy ending was novel enough). Collins and Boyd have sex, he loves her she might be black but then she's not (Diana Wynard is good as mum)... that felt a bit hollow. I like James Mason killing Rennie - that was good. And there's decent scenes with John Williams as the cop hounding him.

I also didn't mind the Joan Fontaine and Belafonte romance. Very G-rated, absolutely, but she's clearly hot for him and he's been given tremendous status.

It does work dramatically, which later Zanuck films based on best-sellers like The Sun Also Rises and The Roots of Heaven didn't.

Movie review - "Night People" (1954) ***

There was a time growing up when this always seemed to be on TV. Its an unpretentious, entirely decent thriller from Nunnally Johnson, which was shot on location in Germany in CinemaScope but probably would have been better off in black and white on a small screen.

It's about what happens when an American soldier is kidnapped in Berlin. His father, wealthy Broderick Crawford, turns up demanding something must be done, but cool Gregory Peck is on the case.

There's some okay twists - it's all about the Russians wanting back an old English couple. At times I wish we'd meet the Russians more but I guess that adds to the spookiness of it. I think the Crawford role is wasted - he starts off great, being a typical rich American, then kind of fades away. Towards the end when he goes "I guess maybe I care about other people as much as my son" it doesn't mean anything because he's got no power to decide. I reckon they should have made this character a woman like Bette Davis or something and she could have had a romantic relationship with Peck. That would have been better than Rita Gam's secretary who just pines for Peck.

Anita Bjork isn't much as the femme fetale - the climax involves Peck punching her unconscious. I did like how Peck tried to trick her into drinking poison by taking it himself only she doesn't take it. That was good.

It does feel cheating somehow that the real baddies are actually Nazis working for the Communists instead of just communists. And maybe it could have done with an extra twist or two - using the soldier's girlfriend  as a traitor, say, or the mother of the soldier more.

Still, a solid effort and I think Johnson does a good job as director.

Book review - "Screewriter, the Life and Times of Nunnally Johnson" by Thomas Stempel

A biography of Nunnally Johnson? Sure, why not? It helps that Stempel is a pleasant writer, who has done a number of illuminating book on screenwriting.

Johnson occupies a curious place in American film history - I'm not sure how well he is remembered. Possibly he was better known say 40 years ago when his films would have been more widely seen on television.

He was a journalist and short story writer who went to Hollywood, as so many of them did at that time (Charle Brackett, Ben Hecht etc). Like many of them he sometimes had a reputation of someone who sold out their talent - a trope which Stempel rightly mocks. Did we really lose so much from Johnson giving up his stories of small town life in Georgia for Hollywood screenplays?

It took him a little while to get going, but what made him thrive was working for Darryl F. Zanuck at the new Twentieth Century Pictures, which became 20th Century Fox. Johnson became one of Zanuck's gun screenwriters, along with Philip Dunne and Lamar Trotti. Like he eventually moved his way up to producing, more out of boredom than anything else. Like Dunne he became a director as well who isn't remembered particularly fondly - though I feel his reputation is slightly higher than Dunne's because he made Three Faces of Eve with Joanne Woodward.

He did leave Zanuck for a period, working for Bill Goetz at International Pictures, but didn't do particularly well and returned to Zanuck. He eventually retired in 1970.

It was an extremely good career, a lot of classics: House of Rothschild, Jesse James, The Grapes of Wrath, Roxie Hart, The Gunfighter, The Desert Fox, How to Marry a Millionaire. He kept relevant up until the end - in the 1960s his credits included popular James Stewart comedies like Mr Hobbs Takes a Vacation (with Fabian), as well as The Dirty Dozen and Flaming Star. He tried Broadway a few times and it didn't work but there's no shame in that.

He seems to have been a nice man, gentlemanly, perhaps a little fond of the bottle, very dedicated to work. The book hints his third wife - the marriage that lasted - wasn't perhaps entirely happy giving up her acting career.

Stempel doesn't touch on some of the more racist aspects of Johnson's work such as the depiction of blacks in The Prisoner of Shark Island. He is very strong otherwise on analysing Johnson's scripts, particularly the man's interest in writing about marriage and having married heroes.

A very interesting book.

Movie review - "Rock All Night" (1956) ** (re-watching)

Another film I watched in honour of Dick Miller's passing. It was based on a 30 minute TV play and you can really tell. I mean this fells super padded, even running at just an hour. Roger Corman starts off with some music acts, then there's comedy with Mel Welles speaking hip talk, then there's more music acts... then about half an hour in the actual story starts.

It's not much of a story - a siege.  They could have made more of it -you could have fleshed out the support characters more - but I know Charles Griffith wrote it very much under the gun.

The musical acts are good - the Platters, that's something. It is fun to see Miller in a lead role and Russell Johnson as a hoodlum but really to be honest I just don't think Miller is the leading man, even as a Jimmy Cagney type. He would've been great as a cop in a long running series. It just feels silly when Miller overpowers a criminal by yelling at him.

Audrey Dalton sings some songs and sounds awful - I think that's the point but it's not fun to hear. This is unpretentious and has historical interest, but is actually frustrating because I think Corman and Griffith could have made a great siege movie had they devoted more time.

Movie review - "Beserk!" (1967) **1/2

I thought this was going to be a psycho biddy film because its starred Joan Crawford but it isn't really - it's a murder mystery. Someone is killing people at a circus run by Crawford. There's a bit of gore but not overly done - trapeze artists fall to their death, someone gets genuinely sawn in half, that sort of thing. As has been pointed out, it actually has more in common with Crawford's 40 melodramas than psycho thrillers - it's Mildred Pierce-y with its driven heroine, younger male lover, estranged daughter.

It's quite an entertaining film. I wish it was better directed - there's opportunities for spookiness which are thrown away - but they used a real circus. There's lots of circus action - animals, little people, etc.  The circus performers even put on a number - I wonder if this was something they really did.

The photography is atmospheric and the cast is fun - Crawford having a high old time as an MC with a younger lover (Ty Hardin, walking around with his shirt off a lot), estranged from her daughter (Judy Geeson), dealing with a bitchy performance (Diana Dors, great fun) and business partner (Michael Gough).

The dialogue is on the the nose and it could have used another subplot or something - or enriched what's there. (Say a romance between Geeson and Hardin). The circus acts do feel like padding, as if the actual plot ran short. But I had fun.