The last in the series. It was about time. I did enjoy the second last one but this one felt tired. Another blonde. Another expedition to find a missing [insert thing]. Comic chimps.
I did like the white bearded scientist becoming this sort of Merlin figure. The acting was of decent quality. Too much stock footage. It struck me with this how much Weismuller was protected/hidden in these movies.
Silly, fun, colourful, over the top, tongue in cheek. Rachel Weisz doesn't get credit for what she brought to these movies - as well as the loveliness factor she grounds them in reality. John Hannah's part is trimmed but that's a good thing.
It was a bright idea to skip forward a few years so they had a kid who could be the stakes. Solid action.
The second "Johnny Weismuller" Jungle Jim again has a very good story, one of the strongest in the series, though the handling isn't up to it.
This gleefully pillages from H Rider Haggard's She as Johnny goes on an expedition with Jean Byron to the interior to rescue some random dude who has been kidnapped by little people. They work for an immortal queen (Helen Stanton). Bill Henry is also along for the ride - the queen falls for him and tries to marry him but Weismuller does a swap, offering himself in his place.
The film really should have made more of Stanton and Weismuller - Stanton seems very free and easy about who she'll hook up with. There are some villainous diamond hunters as well.
The handling isn't that good but I love Haggard so enjoyed the story and it was different. This is when Jungle Jim stories were best: outlandish fantasies.
From this point on in the Jungle Jim series, Jim was called "Johnny" instead of "Jim". Actually it would have been fun had they gone full meta and had Weismuller play a lecherous, fattening, aging former swimmer trying to prolong his fame.
The Maguffin is cobalt, which is mentioned a lot in the script. Like, a lot.
This actually has a decent story: solid conflict with two duelling brothers, a manipulative colonial official, I didn't spot the twist that the girl was bad (maybe I should have twigged when it was specified she was half black... an attitude typical of the time).
Yet somehow it doesn't hit earlier heights. Not enough action. Too much stock footage. Too much use of the word "cobalt".
Some diamond smugglers want to get their hands on diamonds so cause troubles between the tribes - who seem to be played by more actually black actors than usual instead of white actors in blackface.
Karin Booth is the girl. Lester Matthews is Kingston. There seems to be more stock footage in this one. Tamba the Chimp goes up in a plane. The second male lead seems to do more action that Jim.
There's not too many man eaters. This entry felt a little tired and over done with stock footage. Or maybe it's just me.
A film beloved by boomers because it introduced rock music in big wide screen colourful numbers - serious artists too.
I think this was meant to be based on Do Re Mi a novel by Garson Kanin. Fox bought the novel in 1955 and announced the film would star Tom Ewell and Sheree North who had been in The Lieutenant Wore Skirts. Nunnally Johnson was supposed to direct. Then North dropped out. Jayne Mansfield stepped in off the back of her stage success.
How much was this Do Re Mi? Because there was a Phil Silvers stage musical based on that later.
Anyway it is bright and colourful. Great music. Edmund O'Brien is fun as the gangster turned singer. I could take or leave Tom Ewell, then at his brief stardom peak. Jayne Mansfield is very sweet.
Jim wanders into Bela Lugosi territory, coming across a scientist who tests drugs on animals. It's silly and fun. A non white female lead - a native played by a white actor in brownface. Nestor Paiva is a trusty villain, Tamba the chimp has fun (getting his friends involved in overcoming the Ape), the Ape is a tragic figure in a way though that doesn't stop Jim burning him alive.
Done with polish and energy. I do wish Bela Lugosi had been involved!
A lot to admire - the period detail, sense of style, costumes, Elizabeth Debecki is a perfect femme fetale, Hugh Grant is wonderful fun, Alicia Vikander is stunning, the editing of sequences is entertaining (the Berlin car chase, the split screen in the final raid), and I love the ending with the British navy of all people coming to save the day and Napoleon Solo pulling a clever feint.
The two stars don't work. I spent most of the running time wondering who else could have done the job. Maybe Arne Hammer as Solo not the Russian plus a genuine Russian as Ilya. Or Hugh Grant as Solo, with the part rewritten for him (make him British, give him less action), and a Russian as Ilya. I got a little sick of everyone playing a different nationality to what they were eg Jared Harris as a CIA guy. If you're a fan of Henry Cavill you will feel differently.
Jim's boss, Kingston, wants Jim to help a government agent attain mineral rights to a tribal land, but the baddies want oil. What is the difference? Old Jim/Tarzan would have wanted to protect the land. This one is very pro development.
There's decent acting, some fake headhunters, dicey racial politics, Tamba the chimp gets drunk. A solid entry.
One of the more hawkish Cold War entries with a fascinating set up - Jim is asked to help some African islanders move off their island so the Allies can test atomic bombs, "but don't worry they'll be able to move back". And some pesky foreign agents presumably commies try to persuade the locals opposed it.
There is a blonde doctor trying to inoculate the locals, a doctor who is forced to work for the baddies, a divide among the blacks of pro Jim elders and younger leaders more open to the others (the corruptible young was a trope of post colonial filmmaking).
The plot is clear, the fact it is set on an African island gives it novelty, there is decent action (Jim does hand to hand combat to earn the local's respect) and effective acting - I really liked the guy who played the main baddie.
A very joyously pro nuclear testing film.
After Splendor in the Grass, every movie that Warren Beatty starred in flopped at the box office, but all had some sort of life, all tried to be works of significance.
This was the final movie from Robert Rossen, coming off The Hustler. He clashed with Warren Beatty on the set.
The action takes place in a mental hospital. Beatty is a new therapist there, as messed up as the patients who include Jean Seberg and Peter Fonda.
Beatty is very good, though he played this sort of role a lot - a hesitant, handsome man, basically nice, a little messed up. Seberg and Fonda are both superb. Seberg especially. She often seemed to sleepwalk through her parts eg Moment to Moment. But she's alive here.
It's been pointed out Seberg's part is very Warren Beatty esque - a chronic seducer. Seberg here goes for women and men but Beatty was notorious for flattering gay men (William Inge, Tennessee Williams). Maybe the film would've been a bigger hit had Seberg and Beatty swapped roles.
It's intelligent. Long. A little pretentious. Involving. Not entirely successful but I enjoyed myself. Beatty stretched in his choice of material, I'll give him that. Rossen isn't talked about much but he was smart and talented.
Quite fun. Great central idea. Gorgeous locations and sets. Matt Damon and Heath Ledger don't really play characters. They look different but what are there character types? What is their relationship?
Monica Belluci is wonderful. Lena Headley struggles in a stock role, feisty village girl who needs to be rescued. In hindsight, Terry Gilliam's judgement this was a hybrid feels right. They should have let him go all the way.
Peter Stomare and Jonathan Pryce are fun.
Fun to see a big screen shooting gallery movie. Impressive effects. I enjoyed Brian Duffield's original script. This felt as though it followed it. I may be wrong.
Felt flat. You know Kirsten Stewart's going to live until the end. Maybe stuff underwater isn't exciting I struggled to tell the characters apart or their relationshpis.
It's handsome. Glorious production design.
This adventure feels more crowded than usual - there's lots of characters in the movie, many of them Jim's allies which makes it seem easier for him.
The script writer throws in a bunch of stuff: Jean Byron on an expedition, a former Nazi, an opening sacrifice sequence, Commissioner Kingston again, a valley of headhunters, a nasty hunter, a heroic major to hook up with Byron.
Weismuller was trimmer in the earlier JJ movies it seems. It's bright enough, done with energy. Weismuller looks like a sexual harrasser but I may be doing the man a disservice.
Entertaining but a little disappointing. Not as good as the 1995 bio on Stone - which Stone quotes several times oddly enough.
Stone's life was so action packed my expectations were high - exotic squabbling parents, Yale, Vietnam, drugs, sex, taxi driving, film school being taught by Martin Scorsese, screenwriting, etc. Maybe it' s better suited to being a biography.
Stone is an interesting person. Intelligent, self centered, sensual, aware, ambitious, not great with money.
He plugged away for a number of years - driving a cab, living off his first wife and writing two scripts a year. Robert Bolt was an early champion. He made his first feature quite early but little came of it. What got him going was the spec Platoon. That led to Midnight Express, his first assignment - a good one to have. He became a top screenwriter (Conan, Scarface).
Interesting trivia: Keanu Reeves was offered the lead in Platoon, he wanted Warren Beatty and Tom Cruise for Wall Street. There's fascinating insights into the making of Seizure and The Hand. The book only goes up to him about to start on Wall Street. His analysis of other directors like De Palma, Parker, Milius and Cimino is interesting.
The accounts of the making of Salvador and Platoon is exhausting.
Strong book but I can't deny I felt a little let down.
I wish the Jungle Jim movies pushed the fantastical elements more -the best bits about this one are when he gets involved with these half ape creatures. They live in the Land of the Giants, which Jim is protecting, which is fun.
There's some nasty ivory traders, a Good Woman and a Bad Woman, a chimp, a killer Zulu, lots of stock footage, Commissioner Kingston.
It's done with pace and high spirits.
The series was in solid stride at this stage. This is made with care and energy. Low budget to be sure but enjoyable stock footage, a decent story. Sheila Ryan plays one of the strongest female characters in a Jim film, a photographer looking for a scoop. The missing person here is a football player, played by Bob Waterfield - a real football star who was once married to Jane Russell. He's not a great actor but it adds to the fun.
There's people dressing up in skeleton outfits, Jim fighting a shark, Lyle Talbot as a crazed doctor, killer dinosaur reptiles in a valley, plenty of action. I had a good time watching it.
Deliriously silly Jungle Jim epic with Jim dealing with a secret tribe of pygmies. Jim goes looking for a missing army captain - Ann Savage from Detour!
Foreign agents are after a super duper plant. They dress up as natives and do bad things.
There's stock footage, Weismuller does some swimming and pygmies. Actually there's less pygymy stuff than I thought. You might recognise David Bruce and Billy Curtis (little person) among the cast.
Weismuller takes off his shirt in the opening sequence to dive into a lagoon, Tarzan style. He's not in very good shape.
In this one Jim is protecting animals being hunted by drug runners because the animal gland produce a drug. That's a cool idea.
There's a lot of animal stock footage and fun stuff like a female tribe worried about their men and a good scientist coerced into doing Bad Things.
There's too much action though. That sounds weird, I know. I should say there's too much bland action. Stock footage and scenes of people running around. It felt padded.
Still not bad Tarzan lite.
Loud, fun, expert. Expert ish. Just so much fun seeing all these hams together. Stallon gives a lot of time and space to Jason Staham. Jet Li's role isn't much but he has a fun character. Dolph Lundgren has the best part. I forgot Terry Crews was in the movie. Eric Roberts is ideal.
I had a good time watching it.
This book was always out at the LA library and I wondered why as it was a few years old until I realised that Hope was an exec at Amazon and presumably people wanted to suck up when they pitched projects to him.
This book goes up to just pre Amazon. Hope was at an odd stage of his career, having seen the indie film business be knocked out by the GFC and having a not-really-fun stint as head of the San Francisco Film Society.
The book is a combination of memoir, how-to, explaining financial models that aren't really there, and history.
There's terrific insights into the making of early films from Hal Hartley, Ang Lee, Ed Burns, Todd Solodonz. He worked with John Waters, Greg Molotta, Todd Field... lots of people. He doesn't hold back on criticism of people like Field and his one time girlfriend Tamara Jenkins and others.
I felt the book could have done with an edit to make it tighter but it was consistently interesting.
Fun Jungle Jim. Maybe three stars is generous but it has energy and a plot that throws in everything but the kitchen sink. Well, Tarzan tropes, anyway. It's got an expedition into the interior, a Western educated leader (in brownface) trying to get back control of his tribe from nasty locals, a white woman who is raised in the jungle, nefarious treasure hunters (played by Buster Crabbe!).
It's silly and lots of fun with action, stock footage, rampaging chimpanzees. It's terrific to see Crabbe as a villain and John Dehner adds class to the support cast though you're most likely to remember Anita Lhoest as the girl.
They tried for this one. It's not well known but they tried. The support cast is very good - Lesley Ann Downe, Michael Parks, Robert Joy. The characters are given stuff to do - Joy's punk-like killer, the henchman always eating food, Parks and his shades.
Script wise they do a good job of inducing fresh outrage instead of relying on it automatically. Bronson's new girl is the ex of a crime lord - she gets killed, and the crime lord takes custody of her kid, which gives it live stakes.
Some imagination in the action scenes - Bronson uses a soccer ball, a henchman dresses up in drag. There's a fashion world backdrop.
It's not a classic, Bronson was old, and it lacks delirious excess but there's some fine actors and they did try.
Aging beauties and their male prostitutes - it was the theme of many a Tennessee Williams tale. This was based on his 1950 novel which took a decade to be made - the success of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Suddenly Last Summer showed there was still a low of box office hunger for melodramas about horny women.
This has Viven Leigh as an actor who decides to quit a play then her husband dies. She goes to Rome, where the availability of male prostitutes is emphasised in the opening sequences. This presumably upset the Italian government who temporary withdrew permission to make the movie there.
Warren Beatty actively went after the role of the male gigolo. He puts on the spray tan and the accent and does alright. Sometimes he's effective. Other times he's embarassing and overacts.
It was the only feature from famed theatre director Jose Quintero. I don't think he did a very good job.
Nice photography. But I didn't care. She's worried about aging. Falls for a hooker even though she knows he's a hooker. He's a hooker who wants money. Is there meant to be a deeper connection? Would this work if Mrs Stone was male? At least then the "unlocking the hidden passion" stuff would have extra cultural dimension. (There was some camp with Vivien Leigh looking all smug and relaxed after she'd slept with Beatty - "I've just been rammed by Warren Beatty"). But she's an actor... wouldn't she have had a chance to have had hot sex with young things on the road before?
There's no real story. I couldn't see the point. There is the psycho who trails Leigh around, which would have been a more interesting movie. But is he going to kill her? He seems devoted? The film implies she's got a terminal illness. (Everyone smokes btw). Being upfront about that may have made a difference.
Jill St John is fun as a starlet in Rome. So too is Lotte Lenya as a pimp.
I love that Monogram decided, once Boris Karloff no longer wanted to play Mr Wong, to cast a Chinese in that role. And Keye Luke would have seemed natural, as he was established playing Charlie Chan's son and probably the highest profile Chinese actor in Hollywood at the time.
But his casting does make for some adjustment. Luke's Number One son was a very defined character, energetic and Americanised, exasperating his father. Mr Wong was older, distinguished, slow. Luke pulls back on his energy, one of his strengths, and comes up with a hybrid effort.
I think maybe they would have developed the role more for him in time. I understand he signed to make four of these but only did this one - presumably box office wasn't great.
The mystery isn't bad. This was directed by Phil Rosen, making it the only movie not directed by William Night. Grant Withers is the only one to make it through; he was never that much of an asset but I like his continuity factor.
There's decent Chinese content (relative for the time) - the female lead is Chinese, Wong calls up an elder, the plot involves events back in China.
Karloff's last installment in the series ends his association on a high. It's a locked room mystery about the death of a shipping line over. There's plenty of suspects and some memorable characters: I loved the chauffeur who delights in lying; there's also decent subplots, like a romance between rival ship owners, and a double twist at the end.
William Nigh's direction never quite gets into top gear but he has his moments. There's some decent photography.
They never quite got the relationship between Marjorie Reynolds and Grant Withers - was it romantic? Who wanted who? They just seemed to dislike each other.
I liked the Chinese content - Richard Loo as a Tong leader - just wish there had been more.
A dip back after the high of Mr Wong in Chinatown. They bring back Marjorie Reynolds as the reporter but don't seem to know what to do with her. She's not as fun as Grant Withers.
There's less of Karloff's Wong, or so it feels. I actually wish they'd gotten rid of Withers and just had Karloff and Reynolds.
The three of them investigate the death of a cop who was a friend to Withers and Karloff and get involved in a gem smuggling racket. There's not as much Chinese content in this which I feel was a mistake because it was a point of difference.
The budget is decent. The story is fine,
Interesting Williamson. Slower paced. More polite. More British. Which does make its explosions more effective.
There's a lot of short scenes, which I feel it didn't need to be. It all could have played out over the one dinner party. Was this the influence of Williamson going in to screenwriting? He gets extra power when he plays it in continuous time.
There's also a lot of sexual fluidity. Williamson clearly had a high old time in the 70s. The academic has affairs, one with a lesbian, his sister is incestuously interested in him but also sleeps with Sally, who is married to the academic's best friend, who has slept with both with academic and the academic's wife.
The best friend is a filmmaker - Bob Ellis said it was based on him but it reads nothing like him, it's more like successful Williamson (I think Williamson said Tim Burstall was an influence), with the academic being Williamson's portrait of himself if he never went into writing.
The most fun character is the best friend filmmaker and his wife - who is ambitious but not evil, and I feel Williamson describing Kristen. (Who the hell is the bisexual incestuous sister based on?). He's shifted the medium from theatre to film... I'm not sure that entirely works, there's lots of talks about critics and writing, it feels as though it would have suited theatre or books more.
There's some moments of great insight - such as the academic admitting he gets places by sucking up and "giving good interview". The wife is very sympathetic.
For me it wasn't a wholly successful play - a bit too flabby and uncertain, in need of another draft, I feel - but a lot of good things about it.
The best entry in the series so far, helped by Marjorie Reynolds' fun performance as a wisecracking journo who gets involved in the mystery.
This has a fair bit of Xhinese content - the person who hires Wong and then winds up dead (for the third time in a row!) is a Chinese princess, the plot concerns smuggling guns into China, and there's a Chinese little person.
The standard of acting is high though I wish Chinese actors had been given bigger roles. There are some Chinese actors in the cast though - Bessie Loo, Richard Loo, Lee Tung Foo.
The production values are quite high for a Monogram "B" and William Nigh's handling is less lethargic in this one.
This entry starts off energetically but director William Nigh runs out of puff again resulting in the leaden treatment of the first one, which is a shame because it's a solid story. I mean, a B picture for Monogram solid, but that is still solid - it moves along, has suspects and action and all that stuff.
The first Mr Wong had one Chinese actor in the cast, this one has four, I think. Maybe POC a more comprehensive designation than Chinese: Chester Gan, Bruce Wong, Lee Tung Fu and Lotus Long. Of course there is Boris Karloff in yellowface in the lead but one takes what one can.
Karloff brings his A level charisma - there character is a little more Chinese this time, he's investigating the return of a Chinese artifact, which at the end he decides to return to China.
Just wish it had a better director!
Williamson takes on the world of literature and low art vs high art debate. Low is represented by a best selling chick lit novelist, based on Kathy Lette, who Williamson knows and admires and it's one of his most engaging female heroes.
He tries to be fair to the antagonist, the snobby literary critique, supposedly based on Dinny O'Hearn, making it clear he loves his wife and people talk about him being loyal and principled. However Williamson can't resist stacking the deck - the critic is a bad lover, and Williamson never dramatises his principles, we just see him pestering a friend into publishing a worthy book.
He might have a work of more complexity if he got stuck into the Kathy Lette character too - I don't know, had her cheat on her husband, or try to write something literary, or plagiarise or something. She's a little too perfect still. (She is engaging, I just felt her character could have done something more in the second half to do with theme... like realising she's not the soulmate of her husband or have her fall in love with the Jackie Weaver character or something).
Also Williamson doesn't quite nail high literature - there is more to it than suffering; I think he over simplifies because it's not his bag. And the supporting characters of the publisher and his wife, and Kathy Lette's husband, felt as though they could have been used more - to complicate things. It's a little linear.
This review has turned out more critical than I intended - irony! It's a fun play, a bright social comedy, with some witty lines. It tells a story, the world is vivid, and his female characters are stronger than usual. He should have brought back the Kathy Lette character in another play.
The literary critic is one in a long line of Williamson characters supported by a partner because they can't make a living from their art - this seemed to pop up in every second Williamson play of the 21st century.
It's a shame in a way that Elia Kazan and William Inge didn't do more teen-related stuff... there would have been a market for it, and they had a real feel for it. Inge understood outsiders, teen pressures and everyone being horny all the time. Kazan could also bring his excellent casting eye for young players - this not only introduced Warren Beatty, but Sandy Dennis, Gary Lockwood, Barbara Loden and revitalised Natalie Wood's career.
Wood is stunningly good as the pretty but poor girl dating the popular rich boy. Beatty and Robert Wagner insisted the Beatty-Wood romance didn't start until after filming ended and Wood and Wagner had gotten divorced. Well, all I can say is she seems to be enjoying her work. I actually think Wagner could have played the role of Bud... the rich boy who is happy... but Beatty was new, and also a champion football player himself, and came from a small town. He also has an element of moodiness with helps.
Pat Hingle's performance is very much in the Karl Malden vein - loud, bombastic, energetic, over the top. He does add a burst of energy which is needed in the Beatty scenes.
Wood is sensational. Achingly pretty. Her eyes on the people she's doing scenes with. I like that they didn't demonise the mother. Her character clearly has some mental issues - as did Wood in real life. She gets to be upbeat, trashy, happy, in love, in agony, wise... it's wonderful work. Beatty is effective because he's stakes, surrounded by bigger personalities - trashy sister (Loden), loud dad, crazy Wood.
Gary Lockwood is effective as a slime. It's beautifully shot.
A simple, very well made movie.
Monogram's attempt to cash in on the Charlie Chan series had the benefit of a bigger star - Boris Karloff, then in a slight career slump because of the British horror fan (Son of Frankenstein revived his career). The other better known member of the cast were Grant Withers, who was in a bunch of films (he was a pal of John Wayne and husband of Loretta Young and he killed himself), and Evelyn Brent.
Withers is a lunky cop, a part as big as Karloff's. Mr Wong isn't a very interesting detective - a stylish Chinese who wears a suit but dresses "oriental" at home. The handling isn't very energetic.
This was remade as a Charlie Chan film, The Docks of New Orleans. It's quite a good script, just lethargically directed. Would it be so hard to have actors move?
I feel Warren Beatty is a little overrated but you've got to give him points for this movie, a big budget Hollywood movie about American socialists during World War One. He doesn't quite nail it - the personal story is excellent but there's a lot of scenes of people in committee meetings yelling at each other.
Still, they're yelling at each other about communism, empathetically.
It helps that it's got movie stars and focuses on a love story between John Reed (Warren Beatty) and Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton), with their various squabblings and separations, and her fling with Eugene O'Neill (Jack Nicholson).
Random thoughts:
* when Beatty and Keaton have an argument about her feeling like a sideshow in his life and him encouraging her to do stuff I went "that's a chat Beatty has with his girlfriends and probably more than once, maybe even with Keaton"
* the real life narrator device works wonderfully
* all acting is extremely good
* Warren Beatty tends to give the same performance (hesitant, pleasant) and he doesn't have the drive of say Jack Nicholson or Gene Hackman but you get used to this
* they actually could have made this cheaply just by keeping the actors indoors
* set design, photography, etc all excellent.
The film is proof that doing 72 takes on something doesn't necessarily make it better. All those dialogue scenes and communist party scene moments feel rewritten to death. It lacks a universal common touch of emotion.
But its ambition is fabulous.
Part two has a sort of casual slapdash feel - one assumes due to it being turned into a stand alone movie- but it doesn't really matter since we know the story and it's full of stars.
D'Artagnan is a stud muffin in this one - he beds Faye Dunaway, and her maid, played by Nicole Calfan. This leads to revenge.
There's plenty of silliness - a submarine, more slapstick - but is has a darker spirit because Raquel Welch dies. The deaths of Welch, Dunaway and Simon Ward are handled very well, as is Dunaway converting her jailer into an assassin.
It felt a little ramshackle. I don't think slicing the films into two entirely worked. This one doesn't have much camaraderie - the other musketeers disappear for too long. I was constantly having to jog my memory. The use of stars helped.
Oliver Reed is superb as the boozy, tormented Athos. Faye Dunaway and Charlton Heston are excellent, Michael York very good.
Easily the most fun of RKO's four Dick Tracy movies - partly because of Boris Karloff as the villain but also because the plot finally is more outlandish to suit the colourful baddies. In this case there's a gas which makes people freeze.
Ralph Byrne was an underwhelming Tracy but I didn't grow up on him. Anne Gwynne is back as Tess who has a little more to do apart from have Tracy cancel their dates. It has handsome RKO production values. But after WW2 TV started to make B pictures less profitable so the series was cancelled.
A very strong story with rich emotional undercurrents, very well structured. It's heavily female orientated and women have never been Williamson's strong suit. The dialogue and characterisation felt as thought it could have used another draft - there's clunky sounding stuff about refugees and Keating and Howard (it's all in character I just wish it had been smoothed over so wasn't so bald), and the teenage girl character is wild and yep has sex with an older middle aged man.
It is moving, every character earns their weight, there's funny lines.
Not often revived and not super focused, but endlessly fascinating if you are a fan of Williamson because it is so clearly autobiographical.
Williamson writes about a successful writer, a novelist rather than playwright - the leap isn't super convincing, I didn't entirely buy his chats with his "editor" which were clearly meant to be director/producer (the relationship isn't the same). He was married with kids but has left his wife to be with a woman with kids who has left her husband. Unlike Juggler's Three we don't meet the abandoned partners but there's plenty going on - they live in an artist colony, he is visited by his editor (an alpha male... based on Tim Burstall?), a female editor who wants to poach him and sleep with him, his gay agent, and his parents.
Because it's so based on real life the female characters are among Williamson's best -the harried, smart, greedy, engaging new love, the horny editor who had a fling at the colony, and his mother.
The male characters are less impressive- is this the one Williamson play where that's the case?
It's a brave self portrayal - Williamson shows himself to be super touchy about critics, threatens his step kids with violence, a groper when drunk.
There's quite a hot seduction scene although Williamson can't help go for the gag (his character can't get it up). It's very early 70s with its artists colony and bickering greatest generation parents and tolerance of infidelities.
Williamson writes with real skill about his parents' generation. I'm surprised he didn't do that more.
Yet the piece isn't a whole success. It sort of ambles - it lacks the cohesive tightness of Don's Party. But an interesting, entertaining play.
I have memories of loving this play when I first read it at uni - I had heard it was based on his real personal situation and was taken aback that someone could be so honest in its writing. Then I heard Williamson would run it down, and indeed he rewrote the play as Third World Blues, and was wondering if I remembered it wrong.
So on re-reading...
The opening is electric. Man turns up to the flat of his married lover. The husband of said lover is there, back from Vietnam. This is tremendous. Then it becomes apparent the Vietnam vet is going to kill the husband and tension is disappated. There's appearances from the woman they both love, the man's wife, the vet's old pal from Vietnam who has committed robbery. There's a cop similar to the ones in The Removalist and also another man in love with the main woman, Jamie, who feels like a surplus character - he could have been folded into the pompous Williamson surrogate.
Williamson can tell a story - I love how he gets out of the armed robbery stuff by having the cop take the proceeds as a bribe. This is good writing.
Yet something about the piece is wonky. Too many characters or something. Or the way it's dealt with doesn't work. The stakes start off high and then go low. Maybe that's it.
Williamson's first hit - only a minor one but it was filmed, and the movie was a profitable hit at a time when people thought such things were impossible. The dialogue is fresh (for the time), funny and imaginative - Williamson had It. Stork is a wonderful character, tall, horny, hypochondriac, not dumb but also dumb. The banter with his mates is fun - alpha Clyde, quasi alpha Tony, future mens rights activist West.
It must have been a revelation at the time and much of it is still funny. Its remarkable also how Williamson still writers like this - male competitiveness, talk of dicks and money, insecurity about dicks, tossed away socialism. The one female, Anna, sleeps with them all, including a married man, Alan, who I forgot was in this -Alan left his wife and kids for Anna and is torn up about it. Williamson was already writing like a middle aged man. I guess he had a wife and kids by this stage. Anna is the first in what would be a long, long line of women who Just Can't Get Enough Dick, in particular middle aged dick.
I think Williamson's use of structure improved over the years, and he would learn how to tell a story with greater finesse. but he is very recognisably Williamson here. And even at this stage he understood the importance of narrative in a way most of his contemporaries never did, eg there's still a plot with Anna falling pregnant and the rest of the cast could be the father.
After two Morgan Conway installments, RKO replaced him (or Conway quit) with Ralph Byrne, who had played Dick Tracy in serials. Byrne is a little better than Conway but underwhelming. There's a new Tess Truehart... and the return of a supporting character from the previous film, the actor Vitamin Flintheart played by Ian Keith, who plays an important role... taking over an informer who has been killed.
This is similar in style to the first two - Tracy goes after a colourful killer on a rampage. In this case it's the Claw, played by Jack Lambert. He goes after a fake-blind beggar, played by Jimmy Conlin - the events leading up to his death are quite scar.
Imaginative direction by John Rawlins. Made with some care. But this series is missing it for me.
This play doesn't get revived much and it's not very good. It's admirable of Williamson to stretch himself but he wasn't great on sexual politics and some of this is just plain uncomfortable.
It tells a story, it has funny lines, you're always aware of what's going on. The set up has some promise - three men and a woman try to get a crooked developer to confess to a crime, and the men all end up sleeping to the women... Actually come to think of it, that sounds iffy in the hands of Williamson and it is iffy.
There's two alpha males, and one more snaggy who is married. There's a girl at the front desk called Sharon, The siren girl has an ex and there's a developer. The developer and ex character feel under utilised. It's not really a farce because it's not constructed like one. There's talking to the audience scenes where we get inside the head of the men and the siren.
Was this Williamson attempting to explain the actions of the sirens he has met in his life? Is it based on the woman he briefly left his wife for?
I think tackling it was beyond him. At least in an interesting way. Look, I'll give him credit, he tries - but it just feels iffy because she just can't resist cock, and likes alphas and blah blah blah.
It's tricky to write biographies of movie producers because it's so hard (at times) to ascertain what their contribution was (not that it's not considerable... it's just hard to tell) . but the author here does a great job.
Joan Harrison is a name quite well known to serious students of Hitchcock though her reputation is very much in his shadow. She joined his team in the mid 30s, and along with Alma was a crucial part of his development - Hitch only really became Hitch after he met Harrison. She helped make his great late 30s masterpieces which led to his American career; she worked on his early American masterpieces then went her own way, becoming a producer. She started off strong with some quasi classics - Phantom Lady, Nocturne, Dark Water - before tailing off a little with some Robert Montgomery films. She reunited with Hitch for his TV series.
This book does an excellent job sketching Harrison's personality and artistic style - intelligence, taste, love of independence, sexually liberated (affairs with Clark Gable, John Huston and probably Billy Wilder, marriage to Eric Ambler, possible flings with women), sympathetic to progressive causes, stylish. She was friends with Alec Coppel and his wife. She had ill health toward the end which is sad reading but had a pretty good life.
A worthy tribute to a genuine pioneer.
Random thoughts
* I showed this to my five year old daughter and within one minute she said "I hate this".
* It's not very good but I feel people have been especially mean because it's a musical.
* In hindsight they would have been better off having all the roles played by stars/famous people which would have given it a vaudeville quality. I enjoyed seeing the stars. It was the lesser known West End types who were annoying because they were so West End stage.
* The winsome looking heroine is annoying.
* Again in hindsight they would have been better off just having dancers in suits. Because the perspective feels off. One minutes the cats are our size the next they seem to be small. It's disorientating and not in a good way.
* I wasn't a fan of the stage musical so I may be biased.
* Once or twice this game alive, notably in the dancing sequences - when the camera focuses on athletes doing their stuff. Again in hindsight the film would have been better off focusing on dancing.
The second in RKO's short lived Dick Tracy series. Morgan Conway returns as Tracy as does Anne Jeffreys as Tess. He also has an adopted kid.
Dick Wessel plays the outlandish villain. The plot is very linear - it has Cueball killing people and Tracy tracking him down. It lacks a twist. Cueball's bald head is about as colourful as it gets.
Ian Keith adds a bit of dash in too much make up as this actor friend of Tracy's. I kept expecting him to pay off in someway. Maybe he's in the comic.
It's handsome and professionally put together. Just lacks flair of a Mr Moto or Charlie Chan. Gordon Douglas directed.
1) Diamonds Are Forever
2) The Godfather
3) Fiddler on the Roof
4) Bedknobs and Broomsticks
5) The Devils
6) Steptoe and Son
7) The French Connection
8) Nicholas and Alexandra
9) Ryan's Daughter
10) Dirty Harry
11) Mary Queen of Scots
12) A Clockwork Orange
13) What's Up Doc?
14) Straw Dogs
15) Shaft
16) Klute
17) Young Winston
18) The Go Between
19) Mutiny on the Bounty
20) Sleeping Beauty
21) Please Sir
22) Up the Chastity Belt
Interesting what was popular. Really violent movies. Family films. Adaptations of TV series. Historical dramas.
1) The Aristocats
2) On the Buses
3) Soldier Blue
4) There's a Girl in My Soup
5) Percy
6) The Railway Children
7) Too Late the Hero
8) Tales of Beatrix Potter
9) Up Pompeii
10) The Last Valley
11) Butch Cassidy
12) When 8 Bells Toll
13) Tora! Tora! Tora!
14) Dad's Army
15) Little Big Man
The RKO B picture unit were very polished by this stage - Sid Rogell executive produced, William Berke directed. It looks handsome, the support cast includes familiar "B" faces like Sid Rogell and Mike Mazurki, plus an up-and-comer, Jane Greer. Mazurki plays Splitface, who is killing off people one by one. He's the most Dick Tracy-esque aspect of the film - at least, as I associate it with via the Warren Beatty movie.
It's decent B movie stuff. Nothing exceptional or too individual. It's all played straight. Morgan Conway is perfectly fine as Tracy.
