Movie review - "This Property is Condemned" (1966) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

 A tour de force for Natalie Wood who is gorgeous and very good as a wildcat living in a small town panted over by a lot of men, including Charles Bronson (a rail worker) and some old dude John Harding. Then Robert Redford comes into town and he pants over her too.

Redford is handsome and gives what David Shipman once described as his "usual hesitant, nice performance". Director Sydney Pollack once said they never cracked the love story - I think the issue is more Redford struggles to portray lust for Wood. He's always been better as a lust object  - Wood's keen for him but you don't get the sense that she's keen for her. Also the reason he dumps her is so stupid - because his mother says she's a liar. He just believes the mother, walks out on Natalie Wood, who is naked in the shower. I'm sorry he doesn't care about her - why should we care about them?

The film feels vey studio bound although there was some New Orleans filming. Some weird decisions - Wood runs off after Redford discovers she's married and stole money off Bronson (so?).. she dies off screen... we don't know what happened to Redford.

Why not have Bronson appear and kill Redford? Or why not make Redford a complete cad? Why cheat Wood of a death scene? It's so stupid. Wood's excellent performance deserved better. Bronson is good too. The mother is fine. Redford isn't up to it.

Mary Badham is Wood's younger sister. Mary Reid is a stock monstrous Williams mother, and Robert Blake is in it too.

Movie review - "Night of the Iguana" (1964) ****

 Tennessee Williams' last hit on Broadway was also his last hit in the cinemas. He's helped by gorgeous casting: Richard Burton as a defrocked priest (apparently the original choice was James Garner who wouldn't have been anywhere near as perfect), Ava Gardner as a lusty woman running a hotel in Mexco, Deborah Kerr as the seemingly prim woman with fire underneath.

I love its naughtiness - Sue Lyons is so keen to bonk Burton who's fighting her off, and Burton is this boozy loser who is still charismatic, and Gardner has these beach boys with maracas. A big role goes to Grayson Hall who is the antagonist, crucial to the story. John Huston clearly adores his characters and he's obviously loving working in Mexico.

This is a funny, fun joyous film. The constrant references to Burton sleeping with young girls is maybe a little dubious if you think about it too much. And like a lot of these William adaptations it's half an hour too long. But one of the best adaptations of the work - if you get the cating right there's a lot of fun to be had.

Movie review - "Summer and Smoke" (1962) **1/2

 Geraldine Page is a very fine actress just not a movie star. Laurence Harvey isn't bad as the hedonistic doctor but the two of them don't have chemistry. I didn't really get the sense he was that into her or she wanted to be pummelled by him. Others may disagree.

(You know who would've been interesting and who was contracted to Hal Wallis? Elvis Presley. He was Southern and hunky and charismatic and played well with older actors.)

But my core issue of this is it didn't get the transformation of Page's character. She's meant to go from airy fairy to hedonism and that's not really well done. It's a sexless version. I can see why it wasn't that popular.

Pamela Tiffin is pretty as the young horny girl who Harvey winds up marrying. She's a little amateurish but it suits the part.

Movie review - "Period of Adjustment" (1962) **1/2

 Little remembered though it was a hit at the time - well, profitable for MGM at a time when everything from that studio was constantly flopping. Also it was from Tennessee Williams, an early role from Jane Fonda and the first feature from George Roy Hill.

It's a more comic take from Williams - no one's life is destroyed or goes mad, although as in many plays it has men reluctant to have sex with women. Jim Hutton and Jane Fonda get married  but squabble and she winds up at the house of Anthony Franciosa, Hutton's old army buddy who's just had a fight with his wife, Lois Nettleton.

Williams' film adaptations had a good chance it it was about a hot, beautiful female star who was horny - here they were lucky enough to get Jane Fonda. Hutton was a dab hand at comedy, which helps. She and Jim Hutton are sweet. Their plot is Huddon is scared to have sex - he didn't even do it with the gals during the Korean War.

I don't really like Franciosa, he gives off too much of a wife beating vibe (I'm not saying he did it, just that's the sense he gives) even if he's a good actor. I didn't care that much for Lois Nettleton or that plot - she's "homey", he married her for dad's money. It feels 50s TV. Maybe if Nettleton had been more heartbreaking or Franciosa more empathetic. Or more Southern. (John McGiver as her dad isn't very southern). I'm being mean, maybe I just didn't really care about either compared to the others. It's also long.

But it's fine.

Movie review - "Last of the Mobile Hot Shots" (1970) **

 Having missed with an earlier Tennessee Williams film, Lumet strikes out again. An even more imperfect source - The Seven Descents of Myrtle - an even more distinguished screenwriter (Gore Vidal), an impressive cast (James Coburn, Lynn Redgrave, Robert Hooks), James Wong How as cinematographer, Quincy Jones did the score.

I know it's Tennessee Williams but this is a lot of hammy yapping in rooms mostly. Coburn marries Redgrave on a game show then they go to an old house and meet Coburn's brother, Hooks. None of the casting feels right. Coburn starts off bad, I got used to him, he grew into the role more, but he feels wrong. I liked Redgrave at first but then she got on my nerves more and more and was eventually too hard. I wanted to like Hooks, it was great to see a black man in a Williams production but he doesn't feel right. Too lightweight or something.

I didn't get it. I'm not sure Lumet did. On a basic level, the themes of sexual attraction and the menace of the incoming flood are not felt at all.

This film and Boom! killed Williams' appeal as someone whose work Hollywood wanted to adapt (though he came back on TV in the 1980s).

I've got to say though - it's oddness has an appeal.

Winona Ryder Top Ten

 1) Heathers (1989)

2) Beetlejuice (1988)

3) Edward Scissorhands (1990)

4) Reality Bites (1994)

5) Dracula (1992)

6) Age of Innocence (1993)

7) Little Women (1994)

8) Stranger Things 

9) Black Swan (2010)

10) Star Trek (2009(

Movie review - "The Man They Could Not Hang" (1921) **

 Australian film which was a remake of a 1912 film. Both were blockbusters. Weirdly. It's based on a true story - a man they tried to hang three times and failed. This adds a love story, villain all that stuff. Audiences lapped it up. Presumably because the war made them hungry for stories were someone escapes death.

This is shot by Tasman Higgins so looks good.

Movie review - "The Fugitive Kind" (1960) **

 Must have seemed like a sure fire thing - Brando, Magnani, Lumet, Williams, Woodward.

But it doesn't work. It's so long - two hours and feels it. Lots of chat. A small town in New York stood in for the South - that doesn't really work.

I mean, it's interesting to watch these actors. But it's not sexy. Magnani feels off. Brando seems a little too old - he's meant to be thirty, ageing... but he's not trying. The opening scene where he talks is interesting.

On a basic level the film doesn't work - it's not sexy, we don't feel a sense of impending doom about the town.  The material isn't the strongest- there's a reason the play flopped - but it has inherent sex and violence so could work on a base level but doesn't here. Maybe Lumet was the wrong director.

This movie has its fans. I just wasn't in to it.

Brando only did it for the money - oh the days when he'd sell out making a million dollars to appea in a Tennessee Williams adaptation directed by Sidney Lumet!

Book review - "By Sorrow's River" by Larry McMurtry (2003) (warning: spoilers)

 Book three in this series and I'm getting annoyed. Sorry, Larry, I'm sure you're having fun writing it but this is lazy. Now Tamsin falls in love with another guy Pomp who is reluctant to have sex with her. There's some wacky European journalists in a balloon.

A few violent action set pieces liven things up and it does get better once they arrive at Bents Fort. I just didn't care about these characters - Tamsin, her dad, the one dimensional Indians, the characters killed off when McMurtry got bored with them. These stories should have made the one book.

Movie review - "Looney Tunes Back in Action" (2003) **

 Joe Dante's last big budget studio feature - I wish he'd have the chance to do a few more but anyways... This has it charms, particularly some excellent animation, but doesn't quite work. Maybe too frantic or something.Maybe the real world is as cartoony as the cartoon world? Too noisy?

The human characters aren't that well defined. Brendan Fraser is an affable lunk and... that's it - a little more character wouldn't have hurt. (When he plays himself at the end, he has a real character... that had a lot of potential.) Ditto Jenna Elfman's exec... she's very undefined. Fraser is never believable as Timothy Dalton's son. Why not have an American actor? There's no real core emotional relationship to anchor it.

 I think that's the issue - it lacks chaacter and relationships.

Movie review - "Oh What a Night" (1932) **1/2

 This is a short film, a sketch from George Wallace. A better introduction to his talents than features in many ways because it's shorter. It's also more risque, less loveable as the plot is basically drunk Wallace coming home after a night on the tiles with MarshallCrosby and waking up his wife. It is funny.

Movie review - "Harmony Row" (1933) **

 George Wallace's second feature film is like his first an adaptation of one of his revues. It feels stagey - it proceeds in "acts" there's lots of mid shots, Wallace talks to the audience. 

Wallace is talented as are others but it is more of interested as a piece of filmed theatre. The boxing fight at the end is well done - I wonder if Ken G Hall was more influenced by this that he realied.

I watched this film in instalments - someone put it up on the net - and I don't think I missed anything. You could watch the sequences out of order.

Movie review - "Clara Gibbings" (1934) **

 Adaptation of a not particularly highly regarded play, which made a vehicle for Dorothy Brunton who was a name at the time. She's the owner of a pub who discovers she's related to an earl unleashing much class comedy. I'm sure this meant more in England. It Isn't Done dealt with this material better. Brunton isn't that impressive. Campbell Copelin is a funny old leading man.

But still it's of cultural interest.  And it is comptentently done - up to the standard of British B pictures. It's the sort of subject that presumably Frank Harvey, who was associate director and adapted the script, would've been interested in - I wonder if he used some situations in It Isn't Done.

Oh and there's a zoom - I wonder if that was FW Thring or Harvey.

Movie review - "Diggers in Blighty" (1933) **

 Pat Hanna's second film with Hanna as director and Raymond Longford as "associate director". The first segment is a straight war story, played seriously - it feels directed by Longford. Then in comes Hanna and Joe Vallis and his stage mates. There's a subplot about a German spy (Longford), a romance subplot involving a nurse and an officer, as well as the comic shenanigans.

This is interesting as a cultural artefact more than as a piece of entertainment - the comedy bits feel like stage pieces inserted, which is fine, and the serious stuff feels like serious interludes in a musical.

There is plenty of cultural stuff - Aboriginal soldiers, soldiers being funny, references to the Battle of Hamel, etc.

Movie review - "Horseplay" (2003) **

 Good on the filmmakers for taking a bold swing - this is  a farce about dodgy types in the racing industry. If it doesn't quite work they gave it a shot.

Marcus Graham isn't perhaps entirely well cast as a horse trainer who marries the daughter (Tushka Bergen) of a successful trainer (Bill Hunter) but cheats on her with his ex (Natalie Mendoza). He's short of money so he decides to arrange for the wife of a jockey to be kidnapped so he can fix a race.

I know there's a debate over how likeable characters need to be - but they definitely need to be watchable, and it's hard to watch Graham do this, especially as he's doing it just ebcause he's bad with money.

Some of it is a little ahem questionable such as Alyssa McLelland having to gyrate in a bikini and talk about the joys of sex with middle aged men.

Some of the acting is very good - Abbie Cornish, Damien Richardson. I think Marcus Graham is not quite right - Jason Donovan (very animated as Graham's sleazy mate) would've been better.

The film makes some simple errors - like it's got too many blonde women (McClelland, Bergen, Krista Vendy, McClelland's friends) so I got them mixed up. I struggled to tell the difference between the wacky hitman too.

Some critics said there were too many characters - I don't think that's the problem, I just think they needed stronger motivations. For instance I'd have Graham need the money because someone wanted to kill him not just because he's lazy. The film could have used its violence more - it's rather coy on that.

Give Tuska Bergen a moivation. Like what does she want? To rip off her dad? To arrange for Graham to be killed? Marc Owen Taylor is her ex who wants her back but... spends most of the time dancing? As does Donovan's ex and Bergen and then Dichardson and Morales.

Some scenes are mean like McClelland's parents finding her dead and Bergen seeing her father be killed.

Movie review - "A Ticket in Tatts" (1934) **

 George Wallace's third film for Efftee is mostly worth seeing as a cultural time capsule, particularly of Wallace's ability. He's very lively, jumping around, destroing a grocery shop, trying to romance a woman, dealing with horses, doing a nightclub act in a moustache. There's a beyond stupid plot where Frank Harvey makes a bet and if a horse wins Thelma Scott has to marry him  - this is played straight! 

It is fun seeing Scott so young. Campbell Copelin is her true love, looking like he's stepped off a stage - as do most people in this film. John Dobbie is on hand. There's song and dances and it's dim and nicely shot.

The footage of the real life Melbourne Cup is interesting.

Movie review - "The Hayseeds" (1933) **

 In the 1910s Beaumont Smith decided to cash in on the stage success of On Our Selection with a bunch of comedies about a yokel family, The Hayseeds. When Ken Hall had a huge hit filming Selection in 1932, Smith decided to cash in again, and blew the dust off his Hayseeds IP.

Canny Smith also hooked up with JC Williamsons, the theatrical management who dominated Australian commercial theatre. They (presumably) financed, or at the least "loaned" a  lot of their actors who were then appearing in a musical Music in the Air in Sydney. Most notable of these was Cecil Kellaway, a hugely talented South African-Australian comic actor who carved out a niche playing befuddled dads. He was given the role of Dad Hayseed.

The film quite shamelessly rips off the Rudds - Kellaway's Dad has a speech about drought and banks plunked in (which hokey but still would've carried weight in 1933), Tal Ordell's eldest son is horny and stupid and woos another stupid yokel, Kellaway has a wife who doesn't say much and there's a hot youngster who who gets romanced (a "Townleigh" though, not a Hayseed). 

The casting isn't quite right - Kellaway is awkward as a hayseed (that speech feels really forced), he's not good as an imitation Bert Bailey; he would be far better as a farmer in It Isn't Done. Tal Ordell seems older than Kellaway. They're better than Arthur Clarke who is the guy the hot daughter romances - he's terribly wet. So too is Shirley Dale, as his love interest.

The play of Selection cross pollinated with stage melodrama (the murder subplot). The Hayseeds feels more cross pollinated with JC Williamsons stage muscials - there's these dancing hikers who come through, and a plot about a girl getting lost in the bush who comes across a mystery man strumming a guitar. It turns out this man is the long lost nephew of a Lord. 

Both plots are resolved quickly and lazily - turns out mystery English man took the blame for theft for his relative who is really guilty; that relative dies off screen and confesses clearing his name. And Dad gets out of financial trouble by winning the lottery. There's also a plot involving one of Hayseeds' sons, I think that isn't resolved? I may have to check.

But still the speeches while manufactured have a basis in truth, the film loves Australia, there's fun with Kellaway and Ordell dressing up as Ned Kelly to help Clarke, the financial pressures on people were real, the songs are charmingly odd, there's a Busby Berkley number at the end which is quite good. There's lots to see.

Smith shot it mostly in studio but gets the cast out on Sydney streets to catch a tram. He also did some filming out at Pymble. He had a lot of get-up-and-go, did Smith.

Movie review - "Into the Straight" (1949) **1/2

 Entirely decent, honest Australian film - the sort of bread and butter picture they made in Hollywood and Britain, benefiting from some location work of the Melbourne Cup and at a stud. Strong cast toom, briskly handled. Decent characters... but too much stuff happening. 

How's this... there's a horse training for the big race, George Randall and Muriel Steinbeck are a couple running a stud, Nonie Peifer and Shirley Hall are daughters and Charles Tingwell, then James Workman (later a top writer) and his son Alan White come out, then White falls for Peifer who winds up in a wheelchair, then White kind of shoots through but doesn't, then Tingwell gets in gambling debt and brings vampy singer Georgie Sterling to the farm, and then money goes missing and they think it might be White and then its Tingwell, and Hall cracks wise, and Workman falls for White, and Peifer plays a concerto, and the horse wins.

Phew

Look none of this is bad in itself it just needed focusing. Why have Steinbeck and Randall, you could just have one? Indeed, you could consolidate that person and the daughter. And you could give everything Tingwell does to White.  Why have Sterling in the film? She should have been a threat to Peifer.

The film also pulls its punches on the villainy of White and Tingwell. White still offers to marry Peifer and isn't bad - why not have him as a cad? Why not have Tingwell be really bad? 

Lots to admire and enjoy. Very competent. Just needed another draft.

Charlie Sheen Top Ten

Looking back on the filmography of Charlie Sheen, never quite a movie star  but it's a solid stop ten

1) Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) - I'm not sure why people that felt Sheen as a comedy star was a surprise since he stole this movie in a one scene appearance

2) Red Dawn (1984)  - some right wing teen fun from John Milius, who clearly had the time of his life making it, and Sheen fits in quite well - what sells the movie, though I think, is Patrick Swayze among teen stars looked like he could handle a gun

3) Platoon (1986) - the role was, in essence, actor proof - I mean you can imagine any number of actors being effective, in a part that required reacting - but he's good

4) Wall Street (1987) - this was more of a challenge - Sheen is very good - it's interesting though that in his memoirs Oliver Stone lamented not being able to use Tom Cruise- ouch

5) Eight Men Out (1988) - Sheen's casting helped this get made, one of Sayles' best films - Sheen's part isn't very big but it's one of the best things he did 

6) Young Guns (1988) - splashy part, good fun, entertaining film

7) Major League (1989) - Sheen again reaps good rewards from a comedy

8) Hot Shots! (1991) - more comedy, different style

9) Being John Malkovich (1999) - stars playing themselves grew tired quickly but this gets points for Sheen wearing a bald wig

10) Three Musketeers (1997) - a version best remembered for the song on its soundtrack but quite fun and Sheen was an ideal musketeer

 That's not a bad top filmography - some comedies but a few heavy dramas, and a lot of them hit the zeitgeist.

Movie review - "Strange Planet" (1999) *** (re-watching)

 This holds up better than I thought it would - time has been kind, in part because it's a time capsule now, we've grown up with the cast, I guess it reminds me of my youth. There's a pang at some things - Tom Long, so handsome, puffing away with cigarettes, and also knowing Emma Kate Croghan wouldn't direct another film despite being so talented with such a clear vision. The dialogue is bright and funny, the visuals have energy, Alice Garner was lovely (I think she gives the best performance in the movie), Claudia Karvan is doing a trial run for Secret Life of Us, the characters are all differentiated.

There is a lack of authenticity about some of it - the law office stuff bumped for me. I was too mean about Karvan's character who in hindsight is a lot more complex than I gave credit for at the time (I guess this means I've evolved!) The bonds of the female friendship especially feels very real.

I do think the film had a central problem - not having the boys and girls meet until the end. I get the concept, but it meant they were working in story satellites, apart from being loosely connected via Hugo Weaving (Long's client and Karvan's lover). Thing is, it didn't have to be that way... they could have met at the first New Years. There were plenty of blocks for characters getting together - Karvan being after Hugo Weaving, Long's character wanting a kid, Watt and Jeffries getting over disastrous breakups could keep them apart for a year, ditto the neuroticism of Felix Williamsons' and Garners' characters.

The acting is good - Aaron Jeffrey feels miscast, but he tries and has a good breakdown. There's a lot of money on display - extras, party scenes. The characters have money too - Jeffries has a house with a pool! I guess he got it from his parents.

Movie review - "Is Paris Burning" (1966) **1/2

 I think Paramount were hoping for their own version of The Longest Day, with this all star account of the liberation of Paris. Thing is, most of the stars were French, so the film was a hit in France but not America. Also, don't mean to be rude, but the battle wasn't that important militarility, more politically (hugely so) - and the film doesn't really go into that, the fact that France might've wound up in civil war. To be fair the film does allude to some of this  - there's no colonial troops though. Or British.

Still there are powerful scenes - the last train of prisoners being sent off to the camps, the massacre of young resistance workers, Orson Welles as the Swedish diplomat persuading Gert Forbe not to blow up the city. And many of the cast lived through the events so it has an authenticity that you just can't get now.

Kirk Douglas is Patton, Glenn Ford is Bradley, Anthony Perkins and George Chakiris are  soldiers, Robert Stack is a general - but most of the stars are French: Leslie Caron, Jean Paul Belmondo, Simone Signoret, Bruno Cremer (a large role), Alain Delon, Charles Boyer, Michael Piccolo, etc.

Gore Vidal and Francis Coppola worked on the script. Vidal whined about it a lot.

Movie review - "Texas Across the River" (1966) **

 Brat Pack Western with only two of them - Dean Martin and Joey Bishop - with Alain Delon playing a role that might have been intended for Frank Sinatra... a rival of Martin's in love and guns... but to be fair the role has been clearly adjusted for him playing a Spaniard. He's quite animated and fun, Martin is fun. The film is a little lazy and the comic Indian stuff is bad (Bishop plays an Indian). It's got 60s Universal crapness and could have done with more star power - for instance the similar Four For Texas also had Ursula Andress, Anita Ekberg and Charles Bronson, this has Peter Graves, Rosemary Forsyth and Tina Aumont... just not the same. It has its pleasures and Martin and Delon fans especially will get something out of it.

Sidebar: Delon was a Western fan, an admirer of Sam Peckinpah and tried to maek two films with him. I wonder if this prompted the French stuff in Major Dundee?

Don Sharp Top Ten

 1) Kiss of the Vampire (1963) - terrific Vampire horror

2) The Devil Ship Pirates (1964) - great Hammer swashbuckler

3) Rasputin the Mad Monk (1966) - cut about but still fun with Chris Lee having a high old time

4) Psychomania (1973) - silly biker fun

5) The Face of Fu Manchu (1965) - spanks alonbg

6) Our Man in Marrakesh (1966) - surprisingly fun spy thriller

7) Witchraft (1964) - cheapie Bob Lippert film which is a lot of fun

8) Hennessy (1975) - skilled, fast paced IRA thriller

9) The Four Feathers (1978) - odd to see Beau Bridges but this is a pretty good version of the story

10) What Waits Below (1985) - no one talks about this but I've always liked it despite some silly effects

Movie review - 'The Devil Ship Pirates" (1964) ***1/2 (re-watching)

 Put this on again just because. It looks so great for a low budget film - the ship, the costumes. Classy with its actors. Jimmy Sangster did a solid script - a lost Spanish ship, conning the locals that the Armada won, conflict within the Spanish (they are former pirates), a hero has a dud arm because the Spanish tortured him, the local leader gives in very quickly.

Could have done with another draft to improve the female roles - they are mostly victims; a traitorous woman would've been great. And maybe one to genuinely fall for a Spaniard. 

But it spanks along.

Movie review - "Madame Webb" (2024) **

 The film gets off to an awkwardly acted and presented start in that jungle sequence and never recovers. Dakota Johnson feels wrong. The movie doesn't seem to have much point. Maybe it should've just focused on Madame Webb mentoring three spiderwomen - like, started with the girls and gone from there. Or maybe it should've embraced it's Christmas Carol theme hinted at when Johnson watches that film - a cranky old loner discovers humanity via acts of kindess. But Johnson is too warm, is given friends. The Parker family stuff feels shoe horned in. And it is hard to build to a rousing climax about a woman who winds up blind and in a wheelchair.

I didn't mind the time jumping and freaking out that Something Had Changed sequences. Some of it is slickly done.

Movie review - "Twilight Zone The Movie" (1983) **1/2

 A film totally overshadowed by the accident, which is fair enough, people died (though more people die on films than you might think).

Interesting people constantly pop up in the cast - Steven Williams from Jump Street, John Larroquette as a Klan member, 

The Landis segment is in the spirit of the show - heavy handed but effective, and Vic Morrow is very good. The Spielberg one isn't very good - he does his tricks, it's just meh. Joe Dante's with the powerful kid is better, even if Kathleen Quinland seems a little bored. The George Miller segment is, as commonly agreed, the best, helped with the strongest story, John Lithgow going for it, and high stakes.

Movie review - "The Sound of Fury" (1950) ***1/2

 Cy Endfield's best known American film. The story of two crooks - Frank Lovejoy, Lloyd Bridges - who commit a crime.

Kathleen Ryan from Odd Man Out Is Lovejoy's woman. Lovejoy does his craggy 40s/50s ugly leading man thing. Bridges gets to act up a storm. Richard Carlson is a rabble rousing journo who has an unconvincing change of heart after he talks to Ryan and gets lectured to by a dull European. There's lots of talks about ethics.

But the drama is well done. The seediness, the descent into crime, the sad eyed look of women, the power of the final lynching.

Ben Thau's Slate at MGM

 Dore Schary was kicked out of running MGM in late 1956. Joe Vogel replaced him with Ben Thau - well, not officially replaced, but Thau was now head of the studio in Hollywood. He wasn't meant to be a production chief. There was a lot of continuity - Eddie Mannix stayed, as did Kenneth Mackenna (story editor). 1957 was a rough year for MGM as several movies came along that didn't do too well - or did but cost a lot. However Thau-Vogel films came through and they did very well. Look at these films greenlit 

* Jailhouse Rock (Oct 1957) - the first really great Elvis movie, MGM brought their skill to Presley and it paid off in spades. If only he'd done more at Metro in this mood.

* The Brothers Karamazov (Feb 1958) - Doystokevsky! But a big hit via Yul Brynner and Richard Brooks. This did cause MGM to think Maria Schell was going to be a star.

* Merry Andrew (March 1958) - Danny Kaye musical that was not that liked but I can understand why it was made

* I Accuse! (March 1958) - Jose Ferrer does Dreyfuss affair.

* Gigi (May 1958) - a last huge musical success. Freed, Minelli, Lerner and Loewe. A last blaze of glory.

*  The High Cost of Loving (May 1958) - a dud. Jose Ferrer in a comedy? Film gets points for Gena Rowlands, who Thau championed.

*  Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Aug 1958) - terrific adaptation of the Broadway hit with the perfect stars. (Mike Todd died during filming in March)

* Imitation General (Aug 1958) - Glenn Ford service comedy. These were fail safe until they weren't. This was - big hit.

*  The Reluctant Debutante (Aug 1958) - light comedy which did okay just not profitable due to its high cost.

*  Party Girl (Oct 1958) - Nick Ray movie. Robert Taylor cop film and a hit.

*Torpedo Run (Oct 1958) - Glenn Ford in the services.

*  The Tunnel of Love (Nov 1958) - Broadway adaptation with Doris Day probably needed comedy and definitely needed a more suitable co star than Richard Widmark.

* Some Came Running (Dec 1958) - Minelli, Sinatra, Martin, MacLaine, Jones. Big hit. Cost a lot.

*  Tom Thumb (Dec 1958) - charming George Pal movie shot in England.

*  The Journey (Feb 1959) - greenlit by Thau, lost money.

*  Green Mansions (March 1959) - think they made it because it was Audrey Hepburn. Wrong co star and director. Big flop.

*  The Mating Game (Apr 1959) - charming version of Darling Buds of May, a perfect role for Debbie Reynolds, and a success - I'm assuming they intended Glenn Ford to play the Tony Randall part! A hit.

*  Count Your Blessings (Apr 1959) - rom com no one remembers with Rosanno Brazzi and Deborah Kerr.

*  North by Northwest (July 1959) - classic Hitchcock - filmed around Aug 1958 so maybe more a Siegel film

*  Ben Hur (Nov 1959) - Thau and Vogel greenlit though Sol Siegel benefited. They took the decision to hire William Wyler not Richard Thorpe and cast Charlton Heston/

*  The Wreck of Mary Deare (Nov 1959) - this wasn't really Thau - made late, but greelit by him, originally for Hitchcock.

Now of course other people were responsible for the above. But what a great slate. Comedy, drama, romance, stars.

But Vogl brought in Sol Siegel as head of production in early 1958. I think they just found the new system tricky. Siegel did well with Ben Hur money but then came a cropper in Cimarron, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and Mutiny on the Bounty. A Thau regime might have made this - Thau was still part of the set up. But I wonder.

Movie review - "The Hole" (2009) **1/2

 Horror for kids, I guess, more Val Lewton than Final Destination, nicely directed by Joe Dante. It's about a family that moves to a house where there's a big hole in the shed out back. The shed unleashes manifestation of everyone's fears.

The film probably gets serious too late in the piece and needed life or death stakes - I had exactly the same notes for Dante's The Burbs.  I think people needed to die.

There's a lot of reliance on the charms of lead Chris Massoglia, who is fine, but not a star; Haley Bennett looked really familar - I thought she was young Emily Van Camp but she's the singer in Music and Lyrics. Nathan Gamble is fine as the little brother as is Terri Polo as a another in Dante's long line of single blonde moms. Bruce Dern is fun as a creepy neighbour.

Movie review - "The Burbs" (1989) **1/2

 Joe Dante was ideal to direct this combination of horror, fantasy, comedy and mystery about neighbors who are convinced a newbie is a killer. It's directed with typical Dante skill and enthusiasm and the cast can't be faulted - everyman Hanks, Carrie Fisher in a weirdly suburban role as his wife, Bruce Dern having fun as a nutter married to hot Wendy Schaal, a big role to vaguely familiar Ric Docummun.

The main problem with this is it didn't have enough story for a feature. It felt like an hour long TV ep. I think it we'd found out Gibson was bad at say the end of act two it would have hade more stakes more menace.

Characters feel as though they duplicate functions. There's nothing for women to do. You could have consolidated the chaacters

Still I acknowledge this is a cult movie that people like and it may benefit from re-watching.

Robin Williams Top Ten

 1) Aladdin (1992) - I remember when this came out I couldn't believe a person could be so funny

2) Good Morning Vietnam (1987) - electric - it may age badly...

3) The World According to Garp (1982) - got forgotten in a way later on but at the time had a great impact

4) Dead Poets Society (1987) - maybe miscast but he and the film work

5) The Birdcage (1995) - film stolen by Nathan Lane but he's still funny

6) One Hour Photo (2002) - entertainingly creepy

7) Dead Again (1991) - does anyone remember this film? I recall it being fun and he was great

8) The Best of Times (1986) - early Ron Shelton script

9) Cadillac Man (1990) - another forgotten film and a great performance I think

10) Good Will Hunting (1999) - sure why not?

Jamie Lee Curtis Top Ten

 1) Halloween (1978) - very likeable performance key to the success of the movie

2) Trading Places (1982) - helped get her out of horror movies, very winning work

3) Love Letters (1984) - some Roger Corman drama, she's excellent

4) A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

5) Blue Steel (1990)

6) True Lies (1994)

7) Freaky Friday (2003)

8) Knives Out (2019)

9)Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

10) The Bear (2023)

Movie review - "Eat My Dust!" (1976) *** (rewatching)

 More forgiving of this the second time. Chuck Griffith, given a directing gig after the success of Death Race 2000, then gave Roger Corman New World's biggest hit to date - he keeps it fast, furious and light. It's a cartoon with violence and stakes to match.

It does have characters - Ron Howard as a Ron Howard type, pursuing hot rich girl Chris Norris. Adults chase after them. It's chaotic mayhem, a Road Runner cartoon, with sped up car action (most car films should use this one's idea for credits - speeding along a road sped up).

Book review - "The Wandering Hill" (2003) by Larry McMurtry

 The second in McMurtry's Berrybender stories lacks the verve of the first - that at least was focused around the romance of Tamsin and Jim; in this one she has a baby and there's shenanigans with the family - dad's an idiot and has sex, the mountain men gossip, there's an occasional bit of gore. It builds up to a massacree but everyone is saved by fog.

Always easy to read it just feels like a book written by someone turning out five pages a day.

Movie review - "Explorers" (1985) ***1/2

 I remember when this film came out it seemed to be such a natural hit with its concept - three kids build a spaceship - but the public didn't go for it (though it developed a fan base). It's has a wonderful tone, affectionate and fun, with the trio of young leads including Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix.

It may have treated the topic too lightly - it's very easy to build the ship and fly and go into space, and meeting the aliens is perfunctory rather than awe inspiring. Maybe it needed a firmer antagonist - genuine threat. The shaggy dog ending does have its integrity - it makes sense. There is some emotion lacking.

Also I think one of the three boys should have been a girl it would've given female interest. Drew Barrymore plays a key role in ET. (Amanda Peterson, of future early death, is a girl Hawke has a crush on but she doesn't go on he trip).

I don't want to be critical I'm just trying to understand why the film wasn't a bigger hit, made with skill, affection and love.

Movie review - "Circus of Horror" (1960) ***1/2 (rewatching)

 I remember this as a child - it's sense of danger, mystery, sexy women, death, circus fun. Liked this more than my 2014 viewing. The atmosphere, the nuttiness of the concept (surgeon hides out by owning circus), the women, the sense of death, the style of Anton Diffring, the sleaziness of juvenile lead who is investigating and leches over women.

Jack Thompson Top Ten

 1) Wake in Fright - steals the film, almost

2) Spyforce - often forgotten, this role really established the Thompson personal

3) Petersen - a star vehicle as much as any that ever existed

4) Sunday Too Far Away - superb peformance in a great film

5) Caddie - a showy support role

6) The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith - he shows his versaility

7) Breaker Morant - not a typical Thompson role but very good

8) The Club - the adaptation has flaws (making it linear) but the casting is perfect

9) The Man from Snowy River - only a small role but hugely effective

10) The Riddle of the Stinson - very effective star role

Barry Spikings Slate at EMI Films

 Michael Deeley left in 1978. Barry Spikings ran the ship alone, with films for EMI's distribution outfit in the US. This would prove disastrous. But let's look at the films:

* The Awakening 

*The Mirror Crack'd.

*The Jazz Singer

*Times Square

*Can't Stop the Music

*Honky Tonk Freeway

Okay, let's try not to be too wise in hindsight. A classy horror film... that' not bad, Even if the source material wasn't strongest. Agatha Christie? Tick. A remake of Jazz Singer? Why not?

Times Square... obscure, small target film. Can't Stop the Music - big budget musical for a band that had peaked, These were arguable. Honky Tonk wasn't - unfunny comedy from a director with no experience in the genre, and no stars... and a blow out cost.

Another slate

*Memoirs of a Survivor

*Britannia Hospital

*Evil Under the Sun

*Frances

*Handgun

Alright let's look at this. Agathat Christie good. A Frances Farmer biopic, yes. But the others are weird - Memoirs of a Survivor and Handgun are like TV, Brittania Hospital is brilliant but lacking any empathy. Only two had a commercial chance.

Then there are films Spikings arranged for before he left:

* Second Thoughts

*Tender Mercies

*Bad Boys

*Cross Creek

*Strange Invaders

*Not for Publication

Cripes what a slate. A B list rom com, gritty drama, biopic about an unfamous person, satire. No action movie,  no stars, it's all pretty arthouse.

Michael Deeley and Barry Spikings' Slate at EMI Films

 By the mid 70s Bernard Delfont had gotten tired of Nat Cohen at EMI - or, to be fair, felt there was fresh blood needed. So he brought in the team of Deeley and Spkings. Let's look at how they did.

They negotiated a deal for EMI to invest in several Hollywood films - Nickelodeon (1976), The Deep (1977), The Greatest (1977), The Silver Bears (1977), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), and The Cheap Detective (1978). 

This was actually a very good slate - Spielberg, Bogdanovich, Muhummad Ali, Neil Simon... only The Silver Bears was anonymous.  

Welcome to Blood City (1977) was random. Cross of Iron was a old over from COhen.

What the mistake was I think EMI should have kept Nat Cohen as overseer of a slate of British films - say five a year.

But anyway... the first proper Deeley-Spikings slate was:

*Convoy

*The Deer Hunter

*The Driver

*Warlords of Atlantis

*Death on the Nile

*Arabian Adventure.

*Sweeney

*Sweeney 2

I really like this slate. Sam Peckinpah action, Vietnam War movie (this was a risk), a Walter Hill action film, a Doug McClure adventure, an Arabian nights movie, Agatha Christie, some British TV spin offs. Having studio co investment on the first three reduced exposure. I think they just picked the wrong star (in commercial terms ) for The Driver.

This was a first rate slate and entirely appropriate for a British company.

Movie review - "Burying the Ex" (2014) **1/2

 This film has a bright high concept idea but couldn't they have made the ex a bit more of a psycho? As played by Ashely Greene she's a bit forthright but she's hot, loves sex, wants Anton Yelchin to (gasp) eat tofu and soy, and is (gasp) into the environment and (gasp) redecorates their place and has doubts about his business acumen... I mean why not make her an abusive bitch? Really manipulative? So it's actually sad when she dies. Then when Anton finds his manic pixie dream girl,Alexa Daddario (dancing on her own, into Val Lewton movies, runs ice cream store, just wants to have sex) we are... meant to go "yay them"?

The movie this reminded me of was My Super Ex Girlfriend  - like that I sense the male writer and director thought they could do a riff on bitches be crazy but like in that movie the sympathy goes to the bitch. I mean, Greene gets run over, she doesn't have any family apart from Yelchin, then she comes back from the dead, and he was going to dump her, then plans to kill her... Yes she wants to kill him and Daddario but it's kind of hard to get too shocked.

There is still a lot to like about the film. The actors are winning, Oliver Cooper is heaps of fun as Yelchin's dodgy mate, it is directed with pace and affection by Dante. I thinnk the script just needed another draft. There's all sort of interesting ideas that aren't explored, like Greene coming back and being horny, and cooking food, and the zombie lore. And also It hink they needed to be clearer who we had sympathy fore. 

Nice to see Dick Miller again even if he is awfully old.

Movie review - "Matinee" (1993) ***1/2

 A film that's impossible to dislike though you can also see why it didn't make many waves comercially - a William Castle type filmmaker visits Key West during the Cuban Missle Crisis. The characters are interesting - a beatnik poet JD, a kid whose father is in the services, a monster mad kid, the Castle filmmaker (John Goodman), his startlet girlfriend (Cathy Moriarty), an anti war kid and her woke parents. I'm not sure the plots are that great - Castle needs some money, there's some young romance. They throw in a spectacular cinema collapse at the end - I'm not sure that was worth the money. They should have had real aliens invade.

But there's so much love for film, filmmakers, buffs, and a recall of the period - like I say it's a real sweetheart of a film. Goodman and Moriaty in particular are great fun. Cameos from Dick Miller and John Sayles.

Movie review - "Piranha" (1978) **** (re-watching)

 Like this movie the more I watch it. Its competence, the solid structure of Sayles' script, the charm of the rural setting (shot in Texas - it has a lovely atmosphere), the engaging Heather Menzies, the skill of Bradford Dillman, the stock company (Paul Bartel, Barbara Steele, Dick Miller), the fact the film has both a sense of humour and a genuine emotional wallop  a kid sees his father eaten, kids are killed, a really nice counsellor is eaten - the attack on the kid's camp is truly shocking and at the end Dillman is catatonic), the film buff in jokes, the polticial commentary. Even Menzies' stand in breasts are funny.

The New World Pictures Stock Company

 Surely one of the strongest stock companies ever in studio history? Up there with Warners in the 40s?

The key players:

1) Paul Bartel - a skilled director and marvelous scene stealing actor, big, bald, funny and warm, absolutely splended

2) Mary Woronov - leggy, spectacular camp, huge fun, always good

3) Dick Miller - good luck for Joe Dante and Jonathan Kaplan and for good reason, always a pleasure to see him

4) Roberta Collins - I count her as a stock company because she rarely played the lead (unlike say Pam Grier and Candice Rialson) - gorgeous, and fun

5) Don Steele - DJ who I'm sure was a big deal and all but who means nothing outside the US other than these films which is fine as he's fun

6) Other directors - routinely roped in for bit parts in New World films (I exclude Bartel from this, despite being a director, because he was a proper actor): Jon Kaplan, Chuck Griffith, Joe Dante, etc.

7) Barbara Steel - the black haired beauty lived up several New Worlds with her campy enigmatic appearance

Movie review - "Willow" (1988) ***

 Considered a disappointment at the time but the years have been kind - the family feel, the novelty of a little person in the lead, young and attractive Val Kilmer and Joanne Whalley, gorgeous production design. Warwick Davis is winningin the lead.

The movie does lacka little something. Maybe the humour doesn't quite work. Maybe Whalley is, for all her beauty, a little bland. Maybe a baby is a dull maguffin.

Actually I think I know what it is - the film doesn't work on its relationships: Davis and Kilmer, Whalley and Kilm,er Davis and the kid. There's lots of interesting character by play at the top in the little people village but not on the journey. For instance at the end when Kilmer shakes Davis' hand it's like... what do they mean to each other? Ditto Whalley and Kilmer. In Star Wars the relationshiups were clearl.

Like I say though the film has a lot of pleasures.

Meg Ryan Top Ten

 1) When Harry Met Sally (1989) - for a time she was the It Girl

2) Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

3) Top Gun (1986) - a few scenes can make a career

4) In the Cut (2005) - brave performance

5) You've Got Mail (1998)

6) Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) - much mocked but it broke all the rules

7) When a Man Loves a Woman (1994) - completely forgotten film, good acting

8) Courage Under Fire (1996)

9) Hanging Up (2000)

10) DOA (1988) 

Documentary review - "The Making of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1970) ***

 Fascinating look at the film - narrated by George Roy Hill mostly, with some voice over from Paul Newman and William Goldman, full of on the set footage. Hill is matter of fact about his decisions and vision- he was a smart guy.

Movie review - "Wild Thing" (1987) **

 This has an interesting Roger Corman style premise (Tarzan in an urban setting) and was written by John Sayles but instead of being directed by Lewis Teague and produced by Julie Corman, who would've kept the pace fast, it's done by someone else and is part Canadian, so has the joy sucked out of it like a lot of Canadian attempts at exploitation.

There are interesting things - 'White Rabbit' over the opening credit, gangsters who dress in bright colours like they're in Death Wish Three, Robert Davi as a stock drug dealer. Betty Buckley is the woman who raises the kid.

Kathleen Quinland feels all wrong - too old, too school marmish.  Robert Knepper is okay. They have nil chemistry. The core of the film should be a love story. They never seen into each other.

When you dig into the premise a little more it kind of wobbles - I mean, Tarzan grew up around apes not humans, whereas Wild Thing is in the city with plenty of people around. He'd know how to talk and interact with people and stuff. 

The movie perks up at the end when Wild Thing goes on a rampage. He kicks arse

The film just needed to be pulpier. More sex, more violence, more emotion. Have wild thing be wilder.

It's a frustrating movie.

Richard Harris Top Ten

 1) The Wild Geese (1978) - a last minute replacement for Burt Lancaster and he did well

2) This Sporting Life (1963) - everyone should be gifted such a star vehicle

3) Robin and Marian (1976) - great as Richard I

4) Juggernaut (1974) - fun cocky hero

5) Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) - film should have used him more

6) Heroes of Telemark (1965)

7) Major Dundee (1965)

8) Gladiator (2000)

9) Man in the Wilderness (1971)

10) The Guns of Navarone (1961) - accent terrible but the attitude is spot on

Book review - "Zeke and Ned" by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana

 Like Pretty Boy Floyd I think this began as a script - you can see its appeal with its buddy two leads, one of whom is the handsome and good shot, Ned. It's based on a true story about which I knew nothing, Ned Christie's War, in Oklahoma, where a Cherokee went on a crime spree that was justified and held off enemy attackers.

Not as depressing as I feared. I mean, the whites are bad, and Ned's kid killed and wife assaulted but he kicks a lot of arse and kind of goes to his death. Long epilogue. Good action - described in more detail than usual for McMurtry. The structure is stronger too. I liked this book a lot.

Gregory Peck Top Ten

 1) To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

2) The Guns of Navarone (1961)

3) Spellbound (1945)

4) Duel in the Sun (1946)

5) Twelve O'Clock High (1949)

6) The Gunfighter (1950)

7) Roman Holiday (1953)

8) The Big Country (1958)

9) Cape Fear (1962)

10) MacArthur (1977)

Ah this list is boring... everyone says these films. Sorry!

What about Peck movies with connection to Australia

1) MacArthur - scenes in Australia

2) Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951) - written by Ivan Goff and originally meant for Errol Flynn

3) Million Pound Note (1954) - from script by Rex Rienits

4) On the Beach (1959) - set in and shot in Australia

5) Guns of Navarone (1961) - Richard Harris as an Aussie

6) The Dove (1973) - he produced it, it has scenes in Australia

7) Moby Dick (1998) - shot in Australia

8) The Omen (1976) - with Aussie Leo McKern

9) Fortunes of Richard Mahoney - Peck was meant to make this with Greer Garson

10) several of his collaborators emigrated to Australia: Casey Robinson (Days of Glory) and Anne Baxter (Yellow Sky)

Movie review - "Ladyhawke" (1985) ***

 Sweet fantasy adventure. Public didn't go for it though it's developed a cult. Good script. Maybe they didn't like Rutger Hauer as a hero though he's fine... a believable knight. Michelle Pfeiffer is gorgeous (I would've preferred long hair). Matthew Broderick is very New York but that's fine it suits the character. Leo McKern and John Wood fun. Maybe this needed to be set in England? Who knows. Kurt Russell, the original choice, would've been interesting. Very satisfying ending. I guess they could've done more with the extras who sat around watching the fight - didn't they have an opinion?