Movie review - "Deputy Marshall" (1949) **

 Jon Hall didn't make that many Westerns in his career but if you were an action leading man of the 1940s you couldn't really escape sometime in the saddle so here he is in an effort for Robert Lippert. 

The plot is very stock - Hall is a marshall who comes across an old timer with a map that involves a railroad scheme. The old timer is killed and Hall gets involved in fixing it.

The cast has some novelty - Hall's real life wife at the time, singer Frances Langford, plays his love interest here, and she sings a song. Dick Foran, who starred in some B Westerns, is a baddie.  Julie Bishop is second female lead.

William Berke directed. He made a few films with Hall around this time. Berke liked to use close ups, so this plays well on television, and knew how to stage an action film. But it's a clunky, sluggardly film.  I guess it's not a bad story (I couldn't pick the final twist), it's just very familiar.

Movie review - "Sailor's Lady" (1940) **

 A three gals and three guys "fleet's in" movie - the sort that normally has colour and songs but this one has neither. The three guys are Jon Hall, Dana Andrews and Wally Vernon - the gals include Nancy Kelly and Joan Davis. Buster Crabbe, whose career has some similarities with Hall, plays a sailor keen on Kelly.

The pacing is slow and there's an un-fun aspect to it: Dana Andrews hates dames because of a divorce and wants Hall to not marry Kelly (who has adopted a baby without telling Hall first). 

The last act involves the baby on a warship and Hall and Andrews go into the background and it becomes the officers, who play it straight... as if the filmmakers were concerned about getting co operation.

I get the comedy this was going for - cute shenanigans on a ship with a baby - but the film doesn't really do it. The characters all blend in. There's not enough women involved. Subplots feel unresolved.  I didn't like it.

Movie review - "Aloma of the South Seas" (1941) ***

 Jon Hall and Dorothy Lamour were a huge hit together in The Hurricane but she was at Paramount and he was with Goldwyn then Universal so they only made one other film together, this one. It's a cute story, with the duo playing a couple who were betrothed as kids and then reunite as grown ups, after he's been to America.

It hits all the tropes - there's frolicking in lagoons, waterfalls, sarongs, colour, native feasts, volcano, a wedding ceremony. Lamour chuckles about Hall threatening to punch her.

Hall and Lamour are an amiable couple - she was a better actor than Maria Montez, warm and sympathetic. The show is stolen by Philip Reed as Hall's jealous nephew who wants Lamour - in one scene he casually shoots a random to death to scare Lamour. Another scene Reed confronts Hall with a rifle and as Hall approaches the action cuts back to Hall as a kid (Scotty Beckett I think) taunting the Reed character.

Someone called Lynne Overman is the comic relief. Katherine de Mille (Cecil's daughter) is in love with Reed.

Solid melodrama, cast and production values. Not directed with particular verve but it ticks all the boxes.

In her memoirs, Lamour wrote that Hall's nickname was Casanova "because he was known to disappear from the set for a romantic fling with any lovely girl who came along."

Movie review - "Hurricane Island" (1951) **1/2

 I love it how Sam Katzman tried to make his Westerns a little different. I mean, he still has Indians attacking white men, but this one is about Spanish Conquisators in Florida. It was written by David Matthews, who clearly liked to throw in a bit of history... this has a real character, Jose Ponce de Leon (played by Egar Barrier), on a real search, the Fountain of Youth.  (I wonder if "David Matthews" was a pseudonym for Robert E. Kent.)

Jon Hall is a Spanish officer - not entirely well cast, but he ambles upon in his Jon Hall way. The reason they're after the Fountain of Youth is because de Leon has been injured by Indians. The local withdoctor says they need to go to the land where he's wounded - it sounds like this story was an African set tale.

Marie Windsor is a female pirate which is awesome. She goes on board a ship with a lot of other women (hookers). There's cat fights, a wise old Indian woman who ages when she gets away from the Fountain, a hurricane. It's all bonkers mad fun.

Movie review - "China Corsair" (1951) ***

 Not produced by Sam Katzman but it was done at Columbia and is typical of Katzman product - a B adventure picture starring Jon Hall. This has him in Alan Ladd mode, gambling in the "far East" on the backlot (cue yellowface... including Ernest Borgnine as a Chinese).

Second male lead is Ron Randell who must've looked at Hall and gone "why aren't I playing the lead I'm a better actor" but then Randell never had a hit like the Montez films or The Hurricane. 

Lisa Ferraday is the female lead, a Chinese who is engaged to Britisher Randell. She's a complete bad ass - a former pirate with a do gooder uncle who wants to sell some jewels to Randell to make money for the poor or something. Randell double crosses the uncle and kills him. Ferraday goes back to piracy, catches up to Randell and Ferraday's female sidekick (called "Lotus") kills him (half way through the film! Poor Randell). Really Ferraday should have done this but it's still pretty cool.

At this stage Jon Hall hasn't done much in the movie except been a bystander on the boat, but he recognises Ferraday and wants her to pay him money because she was responsible for him losing it at a gambling den. He sort of tags along as a support payer until Ernest Borgnine double crosses Ferraday leading to a shoot out on the high seas.

So it's about modern day pirates, some of whom are female, which is interesting. 

This was a little cracker of a film.

Movie review - "Last of the Redmen" (1947) *** (warning: spoilers)

 Last of the Mohicians had been a big hit for Edward Small but he didn't follow it up. Sam Katzman, who was a slightly cheaper version of Edward Small, decided to have his own crack at the novel, and he would do a bunch of other films set in the French Indian Wars.

This has a bigger budget than later Katzman efforts - it's in colour, has impressive production values (well, at the beginning and end... they avoid any siege scenes at Fort William Henry), and benefits from a strong cast. Jon Hall plays Duncan Heyward, normally a villain (the stuffy Pom), Michael O'Shea is Hawkeye, Evelyn Ankers and Julie Bishop are the girls, Buster Crabbe is Magua, Rick Vallin is Uncas.

O'Shea plays Hawkeye as a scuffy Irishman, which actually works quite well, because it plays up the conflict between him and the stuffy Brits. Hall, who one normally would assume would play Hawkeye, is the Brit soldier and is effective too. Crabbe is really good as the tormented Magua.

There's some annoying kid, the girl's brother, who pretends to be an Indian, plus Uncas the Indian friend of Hawkeye who gets to kill Magua. I liked the scene where Ankers tried to seduce Hall. And it's moving at the end when Hawkeye stands by the grave of Bishop (stabbed to death) and Uncas.

George Sherman directed.

Jon hall Live in Concert from 1940 and 1946

A review from a Dec 1940 night club appearance by Jon hall and his wife. See here

 Frances- Langford makes good easily with her pip pop vocalizing and then brings V ott her :mate, Jon Hall, who gets away With dbing nothing. With an appearance and a frank apology fpr being only an actor ahd ; net a dancer or singer, he’ tries bcth and waves the : baton fpr the .prchestra. He can dp nbne pf ;these: thingis, but this audience: was in. a mood ,tO: forigiye him his trespasses. He. at least tried, and at that probably gaVe thd. femhies a chance to sigh . over ‘ the fbrm and flgui-e they peeked at in some South Seas flickers. 

A review from Oct 1940 is here. 

A review from a 1946 nightclub appearance by Jon Hall and his wife. See here.

Frances Langford & Jon Hall, Al Bernie, Carl Ravazza, Borah Mineivitch’s Harmonica Rascals (9) , Ga«Foster Girls, Paul Ash’s House Orch; “Margie” {20th) , reviewed in VARiETY, Sept. 18; 1946.

Melange aboard the Roxy deck this session leans too heavily to the musi- cal side to be fully satisfying. It has.; a number of strong individual ele- ments, but added up they don’t tally . high in the entertainment column. ,,Not a little of the difficulty is the,, faltering finale piwided by Jon Hall in his appearance with his wife, Frances Langford. Show requires a sock finish to get it off for top re- sults and it doesn’t achieve: it.

Hall and Miss Langford did almost exactly the same routine at the Para- mount in October, 1940, and almost exactly the same thing as was said , about them by Wood in ‘Variety’s New Acts review at that time can, be repeated now.:. “Hall comes on following the singer’s opening num- ber and reveals in numerous ways that he hasn’t had much p.a. experi- ence. He falters in handling lined, forgets titles of tlines, etc. . . .” Re- , view went on to say that “it’s all done in a smooth-voiced sort of bash- ful way which sets him solid with the audience.” Unfortunately, that latter part wasn’t true at the Roxy session caught last week. Despite the fact that it was Hall’s eighth show there, he not only muffed one. line after the other of his patter with Miss Langford, but forgot the; name of the house, the name of the tune they were to sing, and just about everything else that could be for- gotten. Apparently being entirely , unable to adlib or cover himself in any way, result was a squirming,- embarrassed audience that wishea the whole thing was over.

Miss Langford, on the other, hand, is a completely polished performer, whether chattering or singing. Her pipes and figure are both as good as ever. She does a number of tunes . on her own before introing Hall. They do some patter together; then wind up in a duet, which isn’t bad. Mainly required are some writer.s to get them up a presentable routine and then a bit of cramming by Hall to remember it. .

Movie review - "Lady in the Dark" (1944) **1/2

 A once famous musical now barely revived - I've listened to a couple of radio adaptations of it. The show had Moss Hart, Kurt Weill, and Gershwin plus Victor Mature, Danny Kaye, Macdonald Carey and Gertrude Lawrence. This junks most of the score and has new stars - Ginger Rogers, Ray Milland, Jon Hall, Barry Sullivan, Warner Baxter. It does have colour Director Mitchell Leisen gets a photograph in the opening credits. Gail Russell pops up at the end as the object of affection of the guy Rogers had a crush on in high school.

It hasn't aged well. Rogers is a strong, beautiful, successful career woman, scolded by her all-wise all-knowing shrink for not wanting love and romance.  She's put in a position of never wanting to be hurt again... Secretly wanting a man who dominates her. Ugh.

You know, you could alter this and update it. Make the shrink a woman. Keep having a career be important, make it about fear of being hurt.

It's of interest. There are elaborate dream sequences, which while they can't escape the feeling of theatricality, are still impressive, and lovingly shot by Leisen and his team. There's a few songs. Rogers is very good.

Paramount were pushing Sullivan as a star - didn't work out. He's really annoying. In fairness it's his character. Milland is charming in a rather stock leading man role but at least they got someone with a bit of star power for Rogers. Baxter is just old. Hall is... well, I didn't buy him as a big time star, and he's not that much better looking than Milland. I'm guessing he was cast because they could afford him. But it is good that they got a leading man for this part.

Movie review - "San Diego, I Love You" (1944) ***

 Little known comedy was the favourite of its director. Reginald Le Borg. It's a wacky family screwball comedy with widowed inventor Edward Everett Horton, hot daughter Louise Albritton and crazy kids. They go on a train to San Diego where Horton is to work on his raft design. 

All the tropes are there - overcrowded train carriages and hotel lobbies, bewildered black train porters, befuddled millionaires, kindly duffers, wisecracking kids, antics on the water, comic butlers.

Jon Hall is quite good as a straight man millionaire, reacting to the madcap family. Albritton is less strong - they were after a new Carole Lombard, and while Albritton tries she doesn't get there. Eric Blore is a butler working for Horton's family and I imagined them having a "butler off".

Lively, beautifully shot, plenty of energy. I didn't expect much and I was pleasantly surprised. Variety called it a "sleeper" and they were right.

Book review - "Tallulah!: The Life and times of a Leading Lady: by Joel Lobenthal

 Tallulah Bankhead is always livening up other people's biographies with her quick wit, nudity, sexual appetite, and fondness for coke and booze. Here she goes center stage and isn't as much fun.

To be fair, the author is upfront about what he's doing - reclaiming its subject from myth, looking at her whole career. There's lots of descriptions of old plays and films. I enjoyed the stuff more that I recognised but that's on me.

Lobenthal writes with a lot of affection and insight and it's well researched.

Movie review - "When the Redskins Rode" (1951) **1/2

 Colourful Sam Katzman French-Indian War movie, presumably cranked out because he'd had success with a version of Last of the Mohicans. This has Jon Hall as an Indian sympathetic to the British and the story revolves around the 1753 Battle of Fort Necessity, which the Americans-British actually lost.

Mary Castle is a French spy. James Seay is George Washington, who has a big role. There's also historical figures like Christopher Gist - I always enjoy how Robert E. Kent flicked through the old encyclopedia for his films.

It doesn't break much new ground but it's in colour, there's some action, the setting is novel. Hall isn't amazing but he has a character to play.

Movie review - "The Devil's Angels" (1967) **

 The Wild Angels made so much money AIP financed this unofficial follow up - I think Roger Corman had a financial interest, Charles Griffith returns as writer, Burt Topper produced, Dan Haller directed, Leo Gordon is in the support cast. It's remembered today I guess mostly for John Cassevetes playing the head biker of a gang that goes into a small town.

Not a lot of plot. Mimsy Farmer is a local beauty contest winner who is attracted to the gang - not Cassavetes (I assumed there would be a love triangle with those two and Beverly Adams who is Cassavetes' gal) but no... she pashes some other guy. The townsfolk try to allege Farmer was raped, which isn't true - the bikers do a mock trial which ends with Farmer being genuinely raped. It's a shocking ending, as is the fact Cassavetes can't stop anything - he discovers the Hole in the Wall, from Butch Cassidy fame, doesn't exist, and drives off disillusioned as the cops arrive to presumably take down the other bikers. Leo Gordon is a decent sheriff who gives the bikers a chance and regrets it.

I wonder how much Griffith this was. It feels written to a brief. Occasionally is comes alive with shots of the biker gang on the highway but generally feels flat, a bit old and conservative. But then I don't really like the genre.

Movie review - "Forbidden Island" (1959) **

Charles B Griffith's success with Roger Corman led to Columbia hiring Griffith to write and produce two films, this and Ghost of the China Seas. He directed this one although apparently Fred Sears (who directed Ghost ) had to pitch in to help out.

It's reminiscent of the Hawaiian movies Corman made like Thunder Over Hawaii. It benefits from colour photography, location footage in Hawaii, underwater filming (in Florida). 

 There's also some star-ish factor with Jon Hall, looking older but still in shape, as a diver. And Corman fans will enjoy the appearance of Jonathan Haze has one of the other divers.

"John Farrow" plays the person financing the expedition - the baddie, with his fake marriage. Is that the John Farrow? He doesn't seem old enough. He's bald, which Farrow was. I've been trying to find out. Filming took place in late 1957 but the film wasn't released until 1959. Farrow made John Paul Jones in 1958 - this was only a short shoot so he would've had time... Farrow loved the islands.

There's a pleasant movie score. It feels like a Sam Katzman movie more than a Charles B. Griffith movie - conventional, solid.

There's odd bits like Jon Hall and Nan Adams walking hand in hand around the island.

Decent final fight.

Movie review - "Dr Heckyl and Mr Hype" (1980) **

 Charles B. Griffith does a comedy-horror (I guess) based on Stevenson's famous story, updated to the present day. Oliver Reed in heavy make up plays a doctor who is nice but ugly and gets turned into a handsome cad.

It's a silly, "wacky" comedy that TBH could have done with more exploitation elements (violence, sex, nudity). Maybe it would've played better shot in the 50s with Dick Miller in the lead (Miller is in this, incidentally). 

Oliver Reed completely commits, it's got to be said - as Heckyl he's covered in make up and puts on a weird accent and as Hype does his Oliver Reed thing.

Sunny Johnson is quite good as the blonde dream girl - she died of a brain tumour not long after filming.  Griffith's old Roger Corman colleague Mel Welles pops in as a doctor.

This was an early American film for Cannon, who wanted a Love at First Bite. Didn't quite work out that way. I've got to say, it's not a dumb film, though - it is silly, very silly, but not dumb.

Movie review - "Up from the Depths" (1979) **

 Charles B. Griffith was one of my favourite screenwriters but wasn't really much chop as a director, to put it mildly. This is a Jaws knock off shot in the Philippines, standing in not very convincingly for Maui. There's killer fish and a lot of silliness - it's close in tone to The Creature from the Haunted Sea. There's a decent ish cast - Sam Bottoms is a leading man, Susanne Reed is lovely as the female lead. 

Roger Corman had some money in this.

Movie review - "Fighting Mad" (1976) **1/2

 When people talk of Jonathan Demme's movies for Roger Corman, most of it focuses around Caged Heat with some on Crazy Mama but this one, his third, gets overlooked. I think maybe because it was for 20th Century Fox than New World, though it is more purely Demme than Crazy Mama.

It's redneck revenge film, kind of, only the lead is Peter Fonda as opposed to some burly middle aged guy, which doesn't work as well. It could have been adjusted more for its star - Fonda gives off a school teacher vibe and could have made an ideal Straw Dogs type lead, a nerd who is pushed to breaking point, but here he's more of a bad ass.

The villains are enjoyably bad - strip miners kicking people off their land. They are well connected to cops and Senators and it's enjoyable to watch their come uppance. Scott Glenn is in it as Fonda's brother who is killed along with his pregnant wife in perhaps the film's most shocking scene.

It's got a sort of low key vibe to it reminiscent of Robert Altman. The shoot out in the basement of a house at the end was a forerunner of Silence of the Lambs. Demme doesn't do much with Fonda's kid - I kept waiting for him to be threatened but it never happens. Ditto the girl that Fonda gets involved with.

Philip Carey is a good slimy villain. 

Other Corman Fox productions: Capone, Moving Violations and Thunder and Lightning.

Movie review - "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" (2021) ***1/2

 I was resistant to it for a while and even now feel the script could've done with another draft (there was a lot of clunk, like Paul Rudd hating science then having kids watch VHSes, small kids don't podcast, the reality of how Ghostbusters sat in the world never seemed to work, and the elder black girl character had no... well, character) but it was a good idea to make it from the POV of kids, the kid actors were good, the small town locales charming and the ending was unexpectedly moving.

Movie review - "Antony and Cleopatra" by William Shakespeare

 Not really a second tier Shakespeare - maybe a third tier? It's got one classic speech, "age cannot wither her". Cleopatra is not a classic Shakespeare role, though one would assume it would be - he can't quite figure out a take. Antony is boozy.  Octavius is smart.

Interesting to see how influential this was on Joe Mankiewicz's Cleopatra - the same death scenes, squabbling, use of soothsayers.

Cleopatra has a servant Charmion who has some wacky lines. There's lots of short scenes that jump locations - it does read like a film script.

Book review - "Caracalla: A Military Biography" by Ilkka Syvänne

 Lots of research. I'll take the author's word for it. He tries to rehabilitate Caracalla's reputation. There's a lot of conjecture. Fair enough. He bags Cassius Dio all the time. Indeed, it felt like criticising Dio was the main reason to write this book. I could be wrong.

Caracalla was an unpleasant man. Reading this... I guess he was okay at leading armies. But he was a shit. I mean, even reading this book gives this impression. He was always lying to people, misleading, slaughtering. The writer keeps excusing him. It's also a homophobic book full of cracks about "effiminate" Macrinus and saying it was natural for straight people to be revulsed by homosexuals and claiming it was good for the peace of the realm that Caracalla slaughtered all these locals. I mean Caracalla empowered the dopey army, didn't leave any long term benefits.

It's a nasty book and the writer comes across as unpleasant.

Book review - "Constantius III, Rome's Lost Hope" by Ian Hughes

 I wasn't that familiar with this Emperor - a successful solder at a time when Rome had too many duds. Hughes can't make Constantinus come alive as a person, but does make a case that he was a lost opportunity - if he'd lived longer he could've held the empire together through some tough times. Good to see him get a book. I did get confused with all the names. Stand out support characters are Galla Palicidia (Emperor's daughter who went through a lot) and Athaulf (Galla's first husband, goth king), Alaric (who sacked rome but seemed attached to it).

Typically well researched and cleanly written by Hughes.

Book review - "Kidnapped" by Robert Louis Stevenson (re-read)

 Classic. First third is brilliant - the dodgy uncle, the stairs, the will, the boat, meeting Alan Breck, the roundhouse siege, landing on a foreign shore, the deadly blind man. Then it gets involved with shenanigans amongst highlanders and is less interesting though I loved the lord in the "cage". It just isn't up to its first third. Battle of wits finale.

TV review - "Fosse/Vernon" (2019) (first four eps) *****

 Wonderful. Shot like a Bob Fosse film. Excellent acted. Stimulating. Brilliant TV. Turns by actors as Joan Simon, and Paddy Chayekfsky and George Abbott. So much fun.

Movie review - "House of Gucci" (2021) ****

 Grand old school melodrama. A modern day Bette Davis film. Lady Gaga is a star - she can act with her face without dialogue, she's open to the camera, emotive. Sure she's a bit hammy but it suits the part and she's matched in ham stakes by other actors: Al Pacino, Adam Driver, Salma Hayek (great to see her), Jared Leto, Jeremy Irons. Jack Huston scores heavily merely by being still and watchful.

Looks gorgeous with clothes and what not. Ex adman Ridley Scott is at home showing male and female beauty.

Just a good old ripping yarn, well told, not dragged out over nine episodes.

Movie review - "Dune" (2021) ***

 Great visuals. Sound. Production design. Better than the 1984 version.

It takes it's time, that's for sure. Doesn't cover the whole book. They could've gotten through it too. Lots of padding here - vehicles taking off, sandstorms. Duncan arrives, says I'm going to leave with the Fremen, then he turns up having lived with the Fremen - you could've cut that first scene. A lot of repeated dialogue.

Misses some tension and excitement from the book - mainly the "who is the traitor" plot. Why cut that? Why not get some excitement? No one seems like a real person. Needed some warmth and humour. Jason Momoa is probably best at that. And Zendaya is beautiful even if she's mostly a vision on this one.

It's a great emotional yarn but the treatment is distant. Cold. 

Occasionally it comes alive - like when Paul and his mother escape and the death of Leo. Gorgeous to look at.

Movie review - "West Side Story" (2021) ***

 The music is divine, the cast is talented, Spielberg directs with a lot of pep. It didn't crack it for me. I couldn't put my finger on it. Too attached to the original? Did I miss Natalie Wood? Did the fact it was filmed closer to the time when it was set give the original more authenticity, regardless of the casting? The dancers in the old one had Jerome Robbins there - it was better.

Some changes. They were fine. Nothing major. Tony Kuchner is a major writer but didn't he just shuffle things around? The two leads were fine. So too the support. It's hard to miss with those songs. Decent ending.

I' m not very enthusiastic I know but I respected it more than like it.

Movie review - "Jungle Cruise" (2021) ***

 Pleasant enough family adventure based on the family ride with some attractive movie stars and production values and a plot cribbed from Pirate of the Caribbean. Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson don't really have characters to play - I think the model was The African Queen but the character edges have been so shaded down, she's just feisty and he makes bad jokes, nd they don't seem into each other at all, but it's cheerful and bubbles along.

Movie review - "Body Slam" (1987) **

 Hal Needham's last theatrical feature as director is a grab bag. It gives a star role to Dirk Benedict who I loved in Battlestar Galactica and The A Team and who plays a role for which he is perfectly cast - cocky smooth talking promoter - but he isn't as appealing on television. I think because he carries the load on his own whereas in his two TV hits he bounced off an ensemble or co star. He was also as Starbuck able to convey sensitivity and he isn't given the chance to do that here.

Presumably Needham was hoping for a young Burt Reynolds, and it's a Reynolds type role (old Reynolds could've played it) - but Burt is relaxed, confident and sly, whereas Benedict doesn't quite work. He's too intense or something. In his defence he doesn't have the same quality people to bounce off - he's best in his scenes with Tanya Roberts but too often he's operating in a vaccuum.

The story is a weird hodge podge. Benedict is a band manager in debt who winds up managing wrestlers. He winds up taking both on the road. Rock'n'roll wrestling. Wow. That's low concept high concept.

Everything feels added as if they went "oh lets add that". His wrestler, Roddy Piper, has a cute kid, Benedict has this romance with Tanya Roberts that's kind of... there, there are convenient villains (Korean debt collectors) who pop in and out. The film doesn't build to any sort of emotional climax it just rolls along and Piper and his partner win the big game and... yeah I guess that's it.

This feels very haphazard and dumb.

Movie review - "Rad" (1986) **

 After some disappointing Burt Reynolds films, Hal Needham turned to teens with this amiable kids film set in the world of BMX racing. Someone called Bill Allen is the lead; he isn't much. Lori Loughlin is really pretty as his love interest but she has nothing to play and isn't convincing on a bike.

This isn't as good as BMX Bandits. It needed someone more interested in actors to get more out of its inexperienced cast. 

There's some 80s camp - the soundtrack features a pre-comeback John Farnham and Real Life ('Send Me an Angel'), there's a hilarious dance number at the school dance followed by Allen and Loughlin doing tricks on a BMX . There's a couple of Farnham songs on the soundtrack - Glenn Wheatley managed him and Real Life, presumably he was behind the pu8sh. (Both bands turn up on the soundtracks of a lot of forgotten 80s films).

Some old pros in support roles class up the picture: Talia Shire, Jack Weston, Ray Walston. The plot manages to be simple, dumb and yet confusing - it's about Allen wanting to compete in a BMX instead of doing his SATS (are those two things not easy to co ordinate?) and Weston is opposed because he wants his biker to win which kind of feels unconvincing as does the town rallying around Allen.

This feels like one of those movies that probably sounded fun in pitch form but they didn't nut out the details. BMX racing isn't that interesting on screen either - BMX Bandits was better because it was proper chases.

Movie view - "Cannonball Run II" (1984) **

 For ten years Burt Reynolds, it seemed, couldn't put a foot wrong, at least not when he got behind the wheel of a car, then with this and Stroker Ace it seemed he couldn't put a foot right. Like City Heat I think this made money but it's a film few people seem to like. Maybe the public tired of it, maybe Burt just got a little bit too old... being a big kid is a little less charming.

This skews older than the previous film - instead of Farrah Fawcett there's Shirley Maclaine, it has a strong Rat Pack presence with a plot about paying back loan sharks and a cameo from Frank and other old timey stars like Sid Caesar, Doug McClure, Tim Conway, Don Knotts, plus Telly Savalas as a baddy.On the new talent there's Tony Danza and a comic chimp and Shawn Weathley as a girl Martin is rooting. Oh and Menudo's song.

Susan Anton and Catherine Bach (both gorgeous) replace Tara Buckman and Adrienne Barbeau and Danza replaces Terry Bradshaw as Mel Tills' sidekick, Robert Kiel is Jackie Chan's new sidekick.

The first movie felt like all ages, this one feels old. Also it doesn't have the same heart and feeling of camraderie as the first one - in that, Burt's romance with Farrah was sweet (well, apart from the abduction), but here he just makes out with Shirley Maclaine in the backseat like two old ageing movie stars (instead of having Maclaine and Marilu Henner I think they just should've had Henner). In the first, it was lovely how Dom DeLuise talked about how he was lonely til he found a friend in Burt, and how Burt explained to Farrah the joys of cannonballing - scenes like that are missing. There's not even that much car action.

It is fun to see Frank Sinatra, and while Dean Martin looks old and weathered Sammy Davis Jnr is full of life and Jackie Chan gets more fight senes.

Movie review - "Smokey and the Bandit II" (1980) **1/2

 This gets all the gang back, and has some decent ideas: breaking up Burt and Sally, throwing in Dom de Luis and a comic elephant. It doesn't have the pace or ticking clock, Jerry Reed and Jackie Gleason chasing after Field seems contrived this time (because she clearly doesn't want to marry him... they should've given Gleason a daughter who loved Reynolds).

Lots of Southern accents and music, and not really funny jokes from Gleason (one about bussing, another about his wife looking like an elephant). Things pick up in the last third with Gleason playing some multiple roles and terrific visuals on a salt plain.

Sally Field and Reynolds make a wonderful couple - he never found anyone as good. There's a lot more Jerry Reed in this one, if that's a selling point. But elephants are funny.

Movie review - "The Villain" (1979) *1/2

 After two big hits with Burt Reynolds, Hal Needham's directorial career stumbled a little without him with this bright comic book Western comedy. It's an odd sort of movie - I can see they were going for an anything-goes type feel, which is fine, and can work, and certainly has in other Needham films, but not here.

First of all it doesn't have the pace. The plot is about Kirk Douglas trying to rob Arnie and Ann Margaret but it takes ages to set up and get going.

Second, while Arnold Schwarzeneggar is ideal as an innocent, it seems weird him being in the West - now, I know Austrians would've been in the old West, it still seems weird especially as the film is a play on old Westerns..

Ann Margret is fun as the slightly trashy woman constantly trying to seduce Arnie but as he shows no interest it gets repetitive. They've gone for the gag - "oh haha he's not keen haha" - but over a feature that doesn't sustain. Nothing much sustains. The Road Runner cartoon motif works best in seven minute installments. This needs depth. Blazing Saddles had the friendship of the lead two and a really serious subject matter.

Entertainingly odd support cast including Ruth Brazzi, Paul Lynde. You can tell everyone had fun making it. But it starts to drag and then gets annoying.

Movie review - "Stroker Ace" (1983) **

 The film Burt Reynolds famously turned down Terms of Endearment to do. You can't blame him for the box office safety of a Hal Needham car movie but such is life this was his first car movie not to be a success. It's not that bad, just not as fun as their other collaborations.

It's not a chase movie like Smokey or Cannonball - it's more a comedy character piece like Hooper only looking at a stock car racer. But it doesn't do that was well as Hooper. Hooper was a lot more sympathetic - he was a stuntman trying to do his job, dealing with age and injuries, worried about ageing. Here, Stroker Ace is an idiot for signing a contract without reading it and his adventures are played broadly. I think the movie would've been better had it been more serious: worried about aging, the young rival (Parker Stevenson), dealing with sponsors. You could've still had laughs, romance, crashes and fun, just underpinned it with a bit more drama.

Jim Nabors is fun as Stroker's mechanic, I like Loni Anderson's character as the virginal good girl who gets involved but she's not that much on screen, no Sally Field. Ned Beatty is excellent as always as a chicken tycoon and the support cast includes interesting faces like Bubba Smith (as Beatty's driver), though he doesn't do much. Parker Stevenson's character feels like a wasted opportunity.

The film lacks the core that Hooper had - that was about an aging stuntman. This is just about a driver who's a bit dim.

Hayley Mills Top Ten

 I just finished Hayley Mill's memoirs, quite fun, and in the interests of killing time wile half watching a movie I'm not that engaged in I thought I'd do a Hayley Mills top ten.

1) Tiger Bay (1959) - astonishing debut. One of the best ever by a child actor, up there with Tatum O'Neal in Paper Moon. One of J Lee Thompson's best movies. Yvonne Mitchell very good in a support role. A lot of 40s and 50s British films were about a kid who witnessed a crime (Hunted, Secret Place, The Fallen Idol, The Yellow Balloon)... this gets points for having a female.

 

2) The Parent Trap (1961) - I always wondered what Annette Funicello thought when Disney flipped over Hayley Mills and started making all these movies for her. "What am I? Chopped liver?" This movie is fun, once you get past the fact the parents conspired to keep kids away from their siblings and other parent for their whole life... oh, and that you can tell the reunion will last five seconds. Mills is excellent. Brian Keith is always good.

 

3) Whistle Down the Wind (1961). A small film, but extremely well done. Superbly acted. Written by Mills' mum - who became an alcoholic. Hayley later did another film written by her mother, Sky West and Crooked, that was a lot less successful.

 

4) The Trouble with Angels (1966) - Mills showed she could be in a popular teen film not made by Disney. Really fun girls-at-convent-school movie, surprisingly hasn't been embraced by many feminist critics despite its female stars, writer and director.

 

5) The Family Way (1966) I figured this would be a cutesy generation gap comedy jazzed up with a Paul McCartney soundtrack and some brief Hayley Mills nudity and, yeah, it is, only there's all this complex sexual stuff going on. Like Hywell Bennett clearly has a much lower sex drive than Mills which is going to cause troubles down the track, and John Mills plays a man who was clearly in love with his best friend (who went along on John Mills' honeymoon... is that normal in England?).

6) In Search of the Castaways (1962) Bright Jules Verne adventure.

7) Endless Night (1972) The best of Mills' psycho thrillers (Twisted Nerve, Deadly Strangers).

8) The Chalk Garden (1964) An old play gets the Ross Hunter treatment but quite well done.

9) The Moonspinners (1964) Charming spys in Greece tale from Disney, lovely location scenery, and Mills the ideal plucky heroine.

10) Appointment with Death (1988) - I wanted to include one late period HM film and this was it for me, she's very good in an entertaining film.

Movie review - "Death Car on the Freeway" (1979) ***

 Years before Deathproof was this little TV movie gem about a psycho van driver who tries to run women off the road. It's well written and Hal Needham shows he was capable of directing more than jokey Burt Reynolds films (not to diss those). 

Lovely cast - Shelley Hack is the plucky heroine, a reporter, George Hamilton is her ex, Peter Graves a cop, Frank Gorshin a colleague of Hack's, people like Dinah Shore, Barbara Rush, Harriet Nelson.

It's a bit feminist - Hack is the hero, routinely dismissed and belittled, her ex Hamilton is controlling and he's not heroic. Hack learns how to drive from Hal Needham (playing a defensive driving instructor) and goes mano o mano against the van at the end. I think the writer had his consciousness raised.

A surprise. Exciting, solid script, strong cast. Well done driving scenes.

Movie review - "The Cannonball Run" (1981) ***1/2 (re-watching)

 The story had already been told via Gumball Rally and Cannonball but this is the one to watch with all its stars, and engaging sense of fun. Burt Reynolds is, as ever, a confident center for this gang, there's a superb support cast including Dom de Luise, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jnr (making one wish they'd made more films together), Roger Moore, Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Farr, Burt Convy, Jackie Chan. I loved this as a kid and it has a feeling of infectious good humour that is very winning.

It hasn't all aged well - Jackie Chan playing a Japanese, all the boob gags, Farrah gets abducted for laughs. And it's not fun to know that a stuntwoman was rendered a quadriplegic as a result of making this.

But everyone is having a good time and that comes across. It has a genuine family feel - all the cannonballers living their silly lifestyles, teaming up for a convenient brawl at the end. Dom de Luise is touching as well as funny (he invented this split personality to cope), Burt is relaxed, Farrah is pretty (not as good as Sally Field), Sammy and Dean are hilarious, so is Roger Moore, there are fun cameos by Peter Fonda (as a biker), Bianca Jagger and Valerie Perinne, I like it how (spoilers) the women win, the love theme between Burt and Farrah is sweet, mel Tillis and Terry Bradshaw do a fun double act (they were given their own pilot as a result), Rick Aviles and Alfie Wise do anothe double act, Jack Elam is hilarious as a doctor, Burt Convy is hilarious parachuting out of a plane on his bike and doing a wheelie.

Movie review - "Hooper" (1978) ***1/2

 Hal Needham's second feature as director is fun, engaging, with a very strong cast. It's better than Smokey because it touches on more serious themes: Burt Reynolds' stuntman is getting older, there's a young tyke coming up (Jan Michael Vincent), his girlfriend is long suffering (Sally Field, lovely in a thankless part), his bestie (James Best) is getting on, Fields' dad (Brian Keith), a stuntman (called "Jocko" the nickname of Fields' stepdad, Jock Mahoney, a real stuntman) has a stroke.

I love how Reynolds was so confident to be around all these scene stealing actors (even low energy Vincent was pretty). He was like John Wayne in that regard.

The director, Robert Klein, was meant to be a spoof of Peter Bogdanovich but you can only really tell at the end when he goes on about pieces of time. no wonder Bogdanovich got annoyed with him. They might've had more fun though doing a more direct take off.

A lovely sense of family, which the best of Hal Needham films had.

Movie review - "Smokey and the Bandit" (1977) ***

 Amble shaggy dog movie which gets by on the charm of its cast, some excellent stunts, and sheer unpretentiousness of its concept. Burt Reynolds and Jerry Reed have to transport some beer over state lines... which I didn't know was a thing but apparently was. The real plot is actually a screwball comedy of runaway bride Sally Field getting a lift from Reynolds.

Field was the X factor of this film - bright, sparky, flirty, game - helping the film do even better than typical Burt Reynolds car films. Jackie Gleason I'm sure has his fans - I didn't grow up with him. I guess he was a decent foil. Mike Henry is his son, the straight man, Jerry Reed's dog is fun (I got confused how the job split between Reed and Reynolds).

There's a lovely sense of camaraderie and fun. Hal Needham backed himself and was right to do so.

Movie review - "Sky West and Crooked" (1966) **

 Not bad. Just dull. John Mills isn't much of a director. It needed the sensitivity of say a Bryan Forbes. Ian MacShane is too old to play Hayley Mills' love interest. It feels as though John Mills should've starred in the film as opposed to directing it.

Annette Crosbie is good as Mills' drunken mum.

Movie review - "Summer Magic" (1963) **

 Hayley Mills once said this was the worst of the six films she made for Disney, and she was right, although it did quite well at the box office. 

It's based on Mother Carey's Chickens, that book which RKO filmed in the 1930s and Katherine Hepburn refused to do. The plot is slice of life Americana - Dorothy McGuire moves her family, including daughter Mills, to an old farm.

The thing is, it doesn't feel like a farm because it's all clearly shot on the Disney backlot with unconvincing back projection. There are several Sherman brothers songs so it's a musical.

Deborah Walley perks things up a little as a bitch. Her learning to bond with her poorer rellies forms the guts of the plot.

 McGuire nods her head and smiles winsomely as she often did in those late 50s early 60s films she was in starring teen idols (A Summer Place, Susan Slade). Burl Ives smiles and sings. Two random handsome men turn up - James Stacy and Peter Brown - to be love interests to Walley and Mills but I got them confused. Michael J Pollard is in it plus some redhead kid who sings.

Everyone wears period clothes - bonnets, and weird hats when driving. Picks up in the second half.

Script review - "Tequila Sunrise" by Robert Towne (warning: spoilers)

A decent script for three movie stars (the leads are all described as hot, and two of them have a four hour love making session). It's a love triangle between a drug dealer, a cop and the woman they both love... mixed up with another cop who is also a drug dealer. The American drug dealer has two best friends, the Mexican cop and the American cop - maybe those roles should've merged... the American cop kind of disappears at the end. Towne wanted it to end with the American drug dealer dying which it really should have done - the girl could've gone off with the cop and raised the dead dealer's son. The film doesn't quite manage the transfer of affection of the girl from the cop to the drug dealer.

Not bad. A solid Warner Bros style melodrama well updated to the present day.

Movie review - "That Darn Cat!" (1965) ***

 Hayley Mills' last film for Disney. They wanted her to sign a new contract but she turned it down, and later regretted it. I wonder what sort of movies she might've gone on to make - probably the parts given to Suzanne Pleshette eg Blackbeard's Ghost, The Ugly Daschund - maybe the lead in The Love Bug, opposite Dean Jones in Monkeys Go Home.

 This was a big hit in its day -  fun Bill Walsh fantasy comedy with Mills and Dean Jones as its young stars, and a solid back up of character actors: William Demarest, Elsa Lanchester, Frank Gorshin, Neville Brand, Ed Wynn, Dorothy Provine.

There's some fun comedy at the top where Mills and her byofriend discuss going to beach party movies and she asks "don't you get the impression we go to the same movie again and again and they just change titles". Although Mills is top billed this is more of an ensemble piece. I thought she would romance Jones but she's too young... he has a quick romance with Provine, who plays Mills' elder sister, while Mills has a boyfriend, a Jim Hutton type.

It's shot like a TV movie as Robert Stevenson films tended to be around this time but there's good actors, a fast pace and an engaging sense of sweetness.

Movie review - "Schlock" (1973) **

 Most of that movie brat generation got their start with a DIY feature - Spielberg, Coppola, Lucas. This was John Landis' effort,  an affectionate spoof of  monster films - there's a clip where the characters watch The Blob, homages to King Kong and so on. Silly and endearing though at feature length it's not always easy going. The relationship with the blind girl for instance might've been better had it been developed straight. It goes for the gags, which aren't that great, when a more serious tone at times (eg genuine suspense, pathos) might've had more effect. Still, feels hard to judge by normal standards.

Movie review - "The Moon Spinners" (1964) ***

 The powers in Hayley Mills' life were desperate to ensure she "didn't grow up too fast". As a result she never got on drugs or booze - but on the other hand she married the first man she had sex with, Roy Boulting. I remember Universal had similar obsessions with growing up Deanna Durbin slowly.

This was technically Mills' first grown up, ish, role... though there's not a lot of romance. The lucky man was Peter McEnery, a young British actor. I feel maybe they should've gone with an American - Tommy Kirk would've been ideal and safe. 

Mills goes on holiday to Greece with her aunt (Joan Greenwood!) and gets involved with robbers. It's slight but charming with wonderful location filming. McEnery  is fine, though perhaps given too much of the action when the story should've been entirely geared to Mills, who is lovely as ever. Maybe they felt sorry for McEnery who is constantly being beaten up. 

The support cast is fun: Eli Wllach as a baddy, Irene Papas as a local, John le Mesurier and Sheila Hancock as local Brits and Pola Negri, still looking pretty good, as a mysterious rich lady. A sweet fun film and I'm surprised Disney never remade it even if just for TV.

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

 A Rankin Bass production, an anthology of the stories of Hans Christian Anderson.  It actually tells the story of Anderson as a teen, jumping into dream/fantasy sequences comprised of stop action animation.

It's quite charming though has a choppy quality. there's a lot of unconvincing dubbed singing voices. The cast is interesting - voices are done by actors including Burl Ives, Hayley Mills (the Little mermaid), Boris Karloff and Tallulah Bankhead. There's live action appearances from Ray Bolger, Margaret Hamilton, Jack Gilford (as Anderson's dad - you'll recognise the face), Ed Wynn.

Movie review - "Southern Comfort" (1981) **** (rewatching)

 Always worth checking out again. Wonderful look - photography, locations, etc. The acting very fine. It's a love story in a way between Keith Carradine and Powers Booth - the scene between them around the campfire is positively romantic. A lot of the plot involves the soldiers being stupid - stealing canoes, firing at locals, splitting up, leaving safety - but you can't say that sort of stuff doesn't happen. Wonderful last act.

Movie review - "Meatballs" (1979) ***

 I loved this film as a kid and it's a great starring vehicle for Bill Murray who is always ideal as an anti-authoritarian figure rebelling. It doesn't age entirely well, such as Murray manhandling his female love interest. I had trouble telling the Canadian support cast apart with some exceptions such as Kristine de Bell. 

I think it resonated in part because of the whole kids at camp thing - romance amongst the counsellors, and the struggles of Chris Makepeace to fit in and make friends. Makepeace's relationship with Murray is well done pat the dog. (Apparently the Murray-Makepeace two handers were shot in post production to give the film more heart and they work a treat.)

There's a nice sense of camraderie - you sense the counsellors and kids are like one big dysfunctional yet loving family. I enjoyed how Murray's "It just doesn't matter" speech felt like a comedy impro bit at Second City. The girls are allowed to play more than they were in a typical 80s comedy and its sentimentality indicates what Animal House would've been like had Ivan Reitman directed that instead of John Landis.

I remembered all the songs. Like, all of them.

Movie review - "Ashanti" (1979) **

 Michael Caine can give a bad performance - he looks really bored in this movie, which has him as a doctor in Africa whose doctor wife (Beverly Johnson) is kidnapped by modern day slave traders.

This film has some good things in it - location filmmaking in Africa, Johnson is stunning and not a bad actor, the script is simple, the cast is consistently interesting, I didn't mind cameos from William Holden as a chopper pilot (killed quite quickly) and Rex Harrison as an anti slaver, Kabir Bedi has a lot of charisma.

But the music is that awful 70s TV music, Peter Ustinov is absurd as a villainous Arab, it's a bit slow at almost two hours, with no pace, speed or interesting acting. It needed more character work - more dynamics between Caine and Johnson, Caine and Bedi and Johnson needed someone to interact with in the slave group. It's not awful just dull.

George MacDonald Fraser did some uncredited work on the script to beef up Omar Sharif's role. The producer of this was going to make Tai Pan which Fraser had adapted.

Play review - "Speed the Plow" by David Mamet

 Two tough Mamet guys and a typically underdeveloped Mamet girl but the dialogue is a delight, the conflict clear and it's entertaining. You could do it with the execs as women now I guess.

Book review - "Father's Day" by William Goldman

 Sequel to The Thing of it Is starts off a lot better than that one because more stuff has happened - the lead, Aaron (a Goldman surrogate with his bad back, neurosis and early success) has been fired off a musical and his marriage has ended, and he's seeing a dancer and his wife has a new guy. That's all interesting. But then it goes grim... he has his daughter for the day, she gets injured on a swing, the wife yells at him on the phone... so he abducts her. Tries to get her to go to Miami. He's a complete shit - injures a suss pawnbroker, is mean to his girlfriend, his daughter is scared and wounded... He's a terrible person and it's unpleasant to spend time with him.

Written in an easy to devour style just hard to hang around this selfish idiot.

Movie review - "The Bananas Boat" (1975) aka What Changed Charley Farthing? *

 A sort of comic adventure with Doug McClure as a scamp who travels around the Caribbean being chased buy irate husbands. He winds up with prim Hayley Mills and her father Lionel Jeffries.

I think they were going for an African Queen vibe - McClure manhandles Mills, molests her, and they fall in love. Of course. Mills has her mid 70s mumsy haircut that was used seemingly as part of that sabotage to kill her career.

Sidney Hayers has directed some decent films but this is very poor. McClure is charmless, Mills plays it in a weird accent. Lionel Jeffries and Warren Mitchell have their moments. There's shenanigans with commies in Cuba. But it just isn't very good. Actually it's really dull and hard to watch.

Book review - "The Thing of It Is" by William Goldman

 Goldman talked about his attempts to make a movie of this in his memoirs. It didn't sound like much of a movie - a successful songwriter who doesn't like the hit musical he wrote, and who is secretly Jewish. And... And that's about it. The plot has him and his wife go to Europe with their little kid. They visit London then leave the kid with a nanny (!) then go to Venice. They bicker. It's hard to care. He's three dimensional but she's one dimensional - Goldman was never that great on women and there's a lot of talk about the wife's small breasts. She has a bitch other. Two main sequences - an argument over a missing doll and a confrontation about an alleged stolen watch. I would have preferred the action focused on writing the musical. Easy to read, mind.