Roger Corman financed cheapie. Stephanie Rothman worked on it. A decent script - a little more stakes-y than AIP which tended to be more of a grab bag.
It's cute. Edd Byrnes is sleazy. Chris Noel is fun as are the other girls. Aron Kincaid is amiable. Terrific music including the Supremes.
Sublime action, terrific technical achievement, acting very good. I can see why it wasn't a hit - this is in hindsight. There's nothing at stake. We know Furiosa will live and can guess her friend will die. But Mad Max 2-4 were about saving a group of people. That's not done here.
The opening sequence is amazing because the stakes are so huge - trying to hide the nice community. But this is dropped for the rest of the film. The movie needed to be about protecting that.
Fantastic stuff here. But some stuff could've gone - like seeing how Chris Hemsworth (excellent) rose to power. Didn't need it.
Gene Corman was brought in to produce this and he in turn brought a fresh infusion of talent - Alan Rafkin director, Robert Kaufman writer, Aaron Kincaid actor, Robert Q Lewis actor.
It doesn't quite work, a little bit too much of a rip off of Some Like It Hot, but full of energy, fun moments. Terrific music - Lesley Gore, James Brown, etc. Skiing on location (moving to the beach at the end is a jolt). Bobbi Shaw is very winning and likeable - more than Deborah Walley and Yvonne Craig to be honest. Annette Funicello is fun as a student kissing teacher - it's a shame she couldn't have come along.
Bright and fun.
A mess. So much good stuff. So much bad stuff. Patsy Kensi is fine. Gorgeous full of energy. Eddie O'Connell sinks the film. He's a rebel but also sells out. Not good looking. Can't sing, dance or act. This, in Britain in the 80s with film stars falling from every tree. The movie stuffs the love story.
Needed to simply - not that they're going out but that he adores her from afar, has a crush, she has to do what she does for money, she realises he's the perfect guy etc.
So much good stuff though like I say. The title track, Bowie's dance number, the tracking shot, the riot, the colours, Ray Davies' Frank Tashlin/Jerry Lewis style number. Temple was allowed to spend too much money.
The film needed a male lead who could act or at least have presence and to be made for a quarter of the price.
Enjoyable friend-com about a later in life lesbian Dakota Johnson and her BFF Sonoya Mizuno. Done with warm and style. Occasionally the guest stars - Sean Hayes, Tig Notaro (who directed) get a little hammy in their cameos - but it's all in good fun.
Odd Beach Party movie - no Harvey Lembeck, lots of soulful philophising from Frankie Avalon who dreams of surfing forever, Luciana Paluzzi instantly falls for a bodybuilder then instantly falls for Avalon, which is unsatisfactory, then offers him a singing contract, and this offends the friend group because... why? He wants to be a pop star? And Avalon is offended because Paluzzi wants to pick up the tab because...? The film doesn't make sense.
The muscle boys are at least visually different, Don Rickles has fun, Candy Johnson dances, Donna Loren sings, Little Stevie Wonder sings, Dick Dale plays music and surfs, Peter Lorres does a cameo, Buddy Hackett is Paluzzi's helper, fun opening credits, some decent tunes. Avalon smokes after a night surf.
But it's too serious and gloomy.
Extremely well directed - John Chu deserves more kudos than he gets. A real film. It's opened up. Leans in to the benefits of filmmaking in 2024 with animatronic animals and so on. Gets points fot giving the juiciest role to a relative unknown Cynthia Erivo - who will no longer be unknown. Ariana Grande is more limited but is perfectly cast so it doesn't matter.
Gorgeous colours. Gutsy story. I did feel the momentum dropped when they got on the train - the film could've ended there really (as it was the end of the emotional connection between the two leads).
Jonthan Bailey seems to channel Rupert Everett - a good thing for the role.
I’m glad the Beach Party series ended on this and not How to Stuff a Wild Bikini. This isn’t a good movie, not really, but it’s full of fun stuff. So was How to Stuff, but that film had a hollow core as there was no decent central romance. This one has, however tentatively, Tommy Kirk and Deborah Walley.
It also has a script heavily influenced by Pajama Party - like that this is a mash up, in this case beach party and haunted house stories. Patsy Kelly plays, basically, Else Lanchester, Aron Kincaid plays the nephew role essayed by Jody McCrea, Bobbi Shaw is back with Benny Rubin stepping in for Buster Keaton. Quinn O’Hara is fun as the short sighted femme fatale, constantly trying to seduce statues, Francis X Bushman plays an old butler, Basil Rathbone has a decent sized role as a villain, Piccola Pupa is this random singer stepping in for Donna Loren, Nancy Sinatra is the second female lead. Kirk and Kincaid spend a lot of time being spooked, Walley doesn’t have that much to do, Harvey Lembeck and co are on hand.
The device of Boris Karloff and Susan Hart was added after the original cut - it suits the jokey nature of the film. Bobby Fuller Four is in this.
The whole notion of a busload of teens travelling to a house and breaking out into impromptu dance numbers with a band playing a long is just so silly it’s very endearing.
As finales to series go, this was fine.
Gets off to a bad start by coming in on the Enterprise more than half way through its deep space expedition, and showing Kirk as... bored. Come on, he was hanging out for it. Then they run into a space station which robs from the "deep space exploration" feel because it's a huge base. Then they help out a alien person in distress, and there's a baddy and the Enterprise breaks up.
It feels like the episode of a TV series.
Why not use the deep space stuff? Isolation, loneliness, mutiny, cannibalism, primitive-ism? What happened to Alice Eve's character - why not give Kirk a romance and/or son?
The villain is dull - an ex Starfleet officer.
It isn't a very good script. The cast don't seem that into it.
Charming melodrama with Max Bygraves a little awkward but a warm, comforting presence. He has a decent role to play an engineer whose wife and kid died so is wary of involvement but he falls for Barbara Murray a social worker dealing with kids including two Aussies - Dana Wilson from The Shiralee whose dad murdered her mum, and Colin Petersen from Smiley whose mum is a drunken actress. There's also another older kid.
It's serious subject so the warmth is welcome. Lewis Gilbert directs with sensitivity. Lots of care in the film.
Bygraves sings one song and it's sweet - I'm surprised they didn't do a few more.
Fun dance numbers. Plot is silly. Anntte Funicello gets to dance. But her character falls in love very quickly - she's so flippant. Jody McCrea isn't in to her so she goes with Tommy Kirk but then he is attacked by Bobbi Shaw and she huffs, he says sorry, finds out she's a martian, and huffs again.
The veterans are very well used - Jesse White is fun as is Elsa Lanchester, it's great to see Buster Keaton yucking it up with Bobbi Shaw, Dororhy Lamour has a terrific number. The numbers are good except the dim love ballad with Funicello and Tommy Kirk.
Annette suits Frankie better but she and Kirk are fine and he's charming as usual. Teri Garr is a dancer - all those AIP starlets and the true star was there. Susan Hart gets a lot of screen time but she just shimmies. She struggles with her few lines. Donna Loren sings. They may as well have shown Avalon's face we know it's him. He's funny as is Don Rickles.
This is fun. A mash up of sci fi and beach party - the first mash ups. Goldfoot and Ghost in the Invisible Bikini were closer like that.
A genuine Colin Petersen vehicle. He repeats much of the stuff from Smiley - knocks out his dad and runs away, gets in a fight, is cute. Also he plays drums which Petersen could do. He's charming star - the heart of this film. Richard Attenborough's school teacher is a little creepily invested and dismissive of Dorothy Alisoin his wife. Terence Morgan is an excellent cad as Petersen's dad and Jill Adams is fun as the trashy blonde he dates.
Charming. Lovely shot. Good acting across the board - Chips, John McCallum. Shame all the POC had to be bad. Alex Korda's last film.
It doesn't hold up well but I'm giving it three stars because it's silly and fun and such a delight for AIP fans: whether it's James Nicholson writing the story as a vehicle for his soon to be wife Susan Hart, Susan Hart getting a lead role, the double act of Frankie Avalon and Dwayne Hickman, the double act of Vincent Price and Jack Mullaley, the cameos from Deborah Walley, Harvey Lembeck, Annette Funicello.
The film just works. All the casting. It has an emotional core - Hickman and Avalon have a proper bromance. Also the scenes where Hart is tortured by Price make her likable.
No room for songs, cutting them was good ieda.
I watched The Weird World of Goldfoot afterwards - it just wasn't as good. Aaron Kincaid isn't as funny as Avalon. Tommy Kirk isn't as warm as Hickman, Harvey Lembeck isn't as good as Mullaney.
Extremely good sequel. Inevitably lacks the surprise and freshness of the 2009 version but full of life, mixes the tropes well, and I really liked how there's two villains, nasty Peter Weller and enigmatic Benedit Cumberbatch.
I was surprised that Bruce Greenwood's Captain Pike survived the first movie so it wasn't a shock to see him killed her. Alice Eve - an It Girl at the time - doesn't really add much and has to do a scene in her underwar. They struggle to give Zoe Saldana stuff to do. Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto are excellent.
There's the usual bloat but on the whole I enjoyed this.
This brought Sam Peckinpah back after the double whammy of Major Dundee and Cincinatti Kid. The plot hasJason Robards and Olivia de Havilland running a farm - a mystery man turns up to work for them. He does a good job. Then its revealed the man has a history of mental instability. A visitor says this, causes trouble, and Robards kills him .
Interesting parallels to Straw Dogs - a simpleton innocently accused.
Plenty of story. Unexpected developments that are logical - the bounty hunter after the guy is slimy but Roberts still overreacts killing him, the simpleton is killed by the posse, Robards is full of guilt. Ben Johnson is a local sheriff.
Really fun. Starts with a bang and keeps it up. High drama.
I maybe had some reservations at wiping out a planet to give stakes for Spock - I mean, the whole planet? Felt heavy. Winona Ryder is only in two scenes really but it's nice to see her in a hit. Ben Cross is fun.
It's spectacularly well cast. Beautifully so. Chris Pine and Zachery Quinto have the biggest shoes to fill but Karl Urban is fun and Simon Pegg and... everyone really. Eric Bana is fine as the villain. Leonard Nimoy steals the show. I didn't really follow the time travel stuff but I'm sure it holds.
This gets off to a flying start and I was excited to see it but then slows down and becomes sluggish. Next Gen films really only focused on Picard and Data and that's the case here. The film kills off Data but it doesn't really matter since he's got a clone. Young Tom Hardy is on hand as the evil Picard clone a young version which had potential but it's not developed. Hardy gets too much screen time where he chats rather than doing anything cool. The regulars don't seem into it.
The only one with much to do in these is Picard and Data - the other characters don't pop, or maybe it's different in the series. This feels like an episode of a TV series but it's well done, I liked Picard's romance, the fountain of youth always works. F Murray Abram does decent villainy.
Kind of taken for granted but all the stuff is there - the bright tone, the meta nature (Dorothy Malone telling Bob Cummings "AIP will buy the film rights", Vincent Price's cameo), the various subplots (Cummings studying kids, Frankie and Annette making each other jealous, bikers as a threat), colourful characters (Lembeck and his bikers, Morey Amsterdam's cafe owner, Jody McCrea's dumb friend, Eva Six's blonde bombshell, Dorothy Malone's sexy older woman, Cummings' anthropologist, Candy Johnson's dancing, John Ashleyh's more cynical friend).
The tunes are very good - "Beach Party Tonight", "Don't Stop Now", "Surfin".
There is variety in the female roles - Funicello is a good girl, but there's also a man hungry Rhoda (who can't understand why Annette doesn't want to have sex with Frankie), the shimmying Candy Johnson, Eva Six, Dorothy Malone.
The musical numbers are done with tremendous verve.
Cummings was 53 (32 years older than Annette) but still looked good at the time - that would change within a year or so eg The Carpetbaggers.
Analysing John Ashley's role in this film - it's clear he's a kind of alpha in the group, suggesting Frankie dump Annette and also being the one not Frankie who entices Cummings on to a surf board (maybe this was to protect Frankie? Or Avalon may not have been available.)
The action screeches to a halt when Annette sings her ballad 'Treat Her Nicely'. But I liked how she was so protective of Cummings. (Also there's a moment where her character seems willing to sleep with Cummings, which is interesting. As is the implication that Frankie has slept with Eva). Because Funicello's character wants to be married an acts old she kind of matches with youthful (ish)Cummings.
Dorothy Malone doesn't have much to do but I liked her and she's sweet shimmying along to 'Tell It to the Moon'.
Bob Cummings appeared in a few musicals, usually playing light comedic leading man duties and not being involved in any singing or dancing. He plays a songwriter here so he has to warble a tune or two. -well, he's dubbed, not very well. Still he handles light comedy stuff as adept as always. Doris Day is the lead and she's very winning.
It's a dim story. It feels like one of those scripts that they kept putting writers on to work on it and never did much good since the central concept was weak. Doris and her mates (including Phil Silvers) are struggling performers, Cummings is a top composer. There's a scene where he pretends to be a mechanic to woo her - people were always faking their identity to romance Doris Day but it's not funny here.
Martha Hyer is the fake love interest.
Solid entry which involves going back in time to find the Inventor of the Thing (James Cromwell) and his friend (Alfred Woodard). The Borgs are strong villains and Alice Krige is fun.
It's entirely smart and respectible. I miss the lunatic fun of William Shatner and the originals, I admit.
Angel fantasy which had more potential - Bob Cummings is an angel sent down to reform Brian Donlevy who has grown up bad as a scowly saloon owner in the old West when he's meant to be good. Cummings is ideal as a breezy angel and Donlevy as a baddy and the Western setting had potential because it's full of violence.
While the film has good moments, notably Majorie Reynolds as a saloon gal taken by Cummings and the death of Edgar Kennedy with a sobbing boy, the film never quite works. It takes itself too seriously when it needed to be lighter. It could've lent into the Western tropes more. There's a dull pastory in the town and the action screeches to a halt when boring school teacher Jorja Curtright (the future Mrs Sidney Sheldson) had scenes with Donlevy. Like, give her some life and fun. The whole movie could've been more fun. More matchmaking from Cummings, more Donlevy-Cummings by play.
I was confused by the mum giving up the kid at the end - so he's meant to die? She gives her kid up to die? I was just a little confused.
This film is an abomination.
The credits started I thought "this is okay" but it's sunk within the first two minutes with Tony Perkins (then 40) as a young cowboy and Beau Bridges and Blythe Danner (both around 30) as his friends. They needed to be the same age and played by young actors.
I think the rationale was "well they're playing older later in the film let's get older actors" but there's 50 minutes of them being young.
Perkins is spectacularly bad. Danner is sweet and lovely and might've succeeded in another film but goes down with the ship. Beau Bridges is too chunky. He's not as bad as Perkins but isn't great either.
Susan Sarandon's part - quite big in the book - is blink and miss.
The whole thing feels fake. The friendship. The sex. The mood.
It's awful.
Smart, very well done, has an ace up its sleeve in that it allows Kirk to meet Picard and shows the death of Kirk. Those are great "posts" for the film to swim towards.
Malcolm McDowall has played this sort of villain role a lot but what they heck. Starts strong with Kirk, Chekov and Scotty and some action - plus Alan Ruck as the guy taking over from Kirk! Then cuts to the new gang. Some talk and action... there's decent spectacle. Strong last third.
One of Rosalind Russell's many comedies of remarriage and she's excellently teamed with Bob Cummungs who is in superb form, as is she. They are so terrific and the film full of possibilities and some strong support (Gig Young) that it's frustrating the filmmakers couldn't cobble it together.
Rosalind Russell is up for being a judget and is getting over the divorce from her ex Bob Cummungs. That's promising as are other bits - Cummings giving testimony from gangster's moll Marie McDoanld who gangstes are to get, Gig Young romancing Russell being a suave possible criminal.
Why don't they use the gangsters? Why don't they have life and death stakes? It would justfiy the lying. Why not have MacDonald love Cummings?
So many dumb ideas like Rusell being continually upset about MacDonald when there's a perfectly good reason for him to be with her, and Cummings not wanting Russell to be a judge in the first place, and not using gangsters, and MacDonald being scared all the time and Cummings fobbing her off.
Have Cummings as a prosecutor, Russell an co worker becoming a judge, make the blonde more Machiavellian and less trust worthy, have Cummings under strict instructions to lie to Russell, have Russell applied to the case, have people trying to shoot them, use the gangster, have Young be either super virtuous or super villainois.
So frustrating. Nice photography.
Nick Meyers' return to the series acts as a tonic - it's a first rate story and done wittily, with solid stakes (Kirk arrested for murder). It could have done with extra pesonal connection. -like maybe the traitor should have been Kirk's ex, mother of dead son, as well as or instead of Kim Cattral.
It feels low budget - has a TV episode feel. Like it lacked an extra $5-10 million to do the action or something. Star Trek 4 had whales, I don't know, felt bigger. Maybe a romance would've helped. Or a relative.
But it's very enjoyable. Tight, Fun. Christopher Plummer adds dash as does Kim Cattrall, Iman, Brock Peters. The film loses some poionts having Shatner do a Bodyguard style dive at the end. Maybe this is more a three star movie. But it's the last one with the old gang, so...
A comedy of remarriage that shoud've been a romantic comedy. Because they split up for dumb reasons so I didn't care, and it's so contrived keeping them apart. It's a dumb script.
The set up would've worked as a rom com. Barbara Stanwyck is a horsey outdoorsy woman who falls for booking Robert Cummings who writes about the Civil War. Both can play comed and would be ideal casting - Stanwyck looks physical Cummings can play nerds. But this central conflict isn't dramatised. It's mostly Cummings having literary groupies particularly Diana Lynn who tries to kiss him all the time and Stanwyck eventually sues for divorce. It makes everyone an idiot. Break them up for a solid reason. I mean they've got two kids one of whom is Natalie Wood.
Classy cast includes Robert Benchley, Willie Best. Patrick Knowles is dull as a rival for Stanwyck.
Fun. Actor-y. Rambles. I listened to the audio book. Helped a lot. He's a man child. A creature of Greenwich Village. Thought nothing of playing gay characters in the 70s. Loves the process. Keeps dating actors (good taste: Diane Keaton, Beverly d'Angelo, Tuesday Weld, Marte Keller, Jill Clayburgh, Kathleen Quinlan). Hopeless with money. As in, a kid. Bumbles through life. Loves his craft.
Some great stories like Diane Keaton going to Pacino's accountant after he was broke "don't you know who this man is? He's an idiot! A child!" Pacino going to the Oscars stoned.
Leaves out stuff, like Lyndall Hobbs.
Enjoyable read.
1) Spy Game - I've never forgotten this especially the endin
2) Revenge - ditto - flawed but memorable
3) Domino - another spectacular Scott ending
4) Crimson Tide - a great macho movie
5) The Last Boy Scout - always thought this was terrific
6) Enemy of the State - feels forgotten now but very slick very fun
7) True Romance - the best Tarantino film not made by QT (I know that's not a big category)
8) Top Gun - too campy and well done not to include
9) Unstoppable - silly fun
10) Man on Fire
Not very good. Some good bits. Interesting ideas. Starts evocatively on that desert plant. I enjoyed the Star Trek crew being challenged by trauma. But there's too many "bits". Some just don't work - sorry, Kirk rock climbing... he's not Tom Cruise he's too tubby. Not much continuity for the previous films. (2 to 4 really are the proper trilogy). Unfocused. Laurence Luckenbill isn't much of a villain - no Ricardo Montalban and not even Christopher Lloyd. Taking on death and religioun was a decent idea but the film can't package it.
Fun to see Harve Bennett make a cameo as an admiral. Jerry Goldsmith's music is wonderful. But it's not a good movie.
1) Planes Trains and Automobiles
2) Uncle Buck
3) Home Alone - only a short role but terrific
4) Splash - scene stealing turn esp when he admits he could never be that happy
5) Stripes - a stand out
6) Cool Runnings - don't believe him as a former athlete but really good
7) National Lampoon's Vacation
8) Brewster's Millions
9) Spaceballs
10) JFK
I haven't seen Only the Lonely - am sure it's terrific
After leaving Gainsborough, producer Ted Black joined Korda then seemed to have trouble getting films made. He eventually made this which at heart is an old gaslighting saga about two sisters, Dulcie Gray and Margaret Johnson, who go to Italy. Both fall for handsome local Kieron Moore who marries Johnson and then seems to be trying to poison her to get the land.
It's handled very well. Gray and Johnson are excellent even if both lack X factor of a star - I did miss Phyllis Calvert and Margaret Lockwood say. Moore looks the part and mostly is fine - when he gets too much dialogue the Italian accent is wearying. Guy Middleton is fine but he's so old - he's Gray's love interest and he beats up Moore at the end but he looks 105. Why didn't they cast a young spunk? What was Black thinking?
Some scripting problems - the girls are passive for so long. Takes them ages to figure out what's going on and then they just whistle for help - well, Gray, Johnson never does. It lacks another twist, a bigger role for Moore's secret lover say.
I did like the way it conveyed Moore was shagging Johnson into compliance - her look of dreaminess.
The film cost too much. It was shot on location in Italy and didn't need to be, not really. It's in black and white.
Black's star spotting hadn't abandoned him altogehter - Gina Lollobrigida has a small part.
Deserves its high reputation. Warm, funny, smart, exciting. Catherine Hicks isn't just the girl. Other crew members are given something to do. Nick Meyer's combination of wit and literacy is perfect for Star Trek.
I've heard some radio shows with Charlie McCarthy the dummy - he was very funny, and could have transferred to films if in the right vehicle. This isn't it. It has some funny momens but is far too gloomily shot - director Frank Tuttle seems to be in noir mode.
The cast is very strong - Constance Moore, Bob Cummings, Louis Calhern. There's not enough Charlie though - why was this? Too many brooding actors. Not enough comedy. Wrong director? Wrong producer?
I did like that Cummings was guilty, that was different.
Sam Peckinpah's follow up to The Wild Bunch was closer to Noon Wine and features the same star as that - Jason Robards. This was budgeted at $880,000 and blew out to $3.7 million which is absurd for a simple tale.
Roberts is engaing as Cable who discovers water and falls for a hooker (Stella Stevens). Peckinpah/s direction of Stevens is pervy and lecherous - close ups of her crotch, cleavage, arse, etc... She's very winning it's just Peckinpah is such a perve. So too David Warner's charactr. he's a sexual predator.
Strother Martin, LQ Jones, Slim Pickens, RG Armstrong and company are on hand.
This film is beloved in some areas. It didn't do it for me. The ending was quite moving when he dies.
Direct pick up from part 2 with Kirk trying to save Bones, and retrieve Spock by stealing the Enterprise. Because they're looking for Spock, his absence until the end isn't noticed. The film has learned from Part 2 to keep the regulars at the forefront - the plot is about rescuing Bones, and finding Spock, and the Enterprise blows up, and Kirk's boring son is in danger and dies (he doesn't even get a close up the poor guy).
Kirstie Alley's replacement as the female Vulcan isn't as good. I like Chris Lloyd's nasty Klingon - Shatner gets to beat him up and throw him off a cliff presumably to make up for not doing with the Khan.
Some nice lines, Shatner has a fine old hammy time. Sorry these stories are a little silly. Why didn't Nichelle Nichols go on the mission? It seems weird just with Scoy, Sulu and Chekov.
Nice to see Australia's own Judith Anderson at the end.
I saw this at the cinema and didn't like it -too slow. I still find it a little slow although I totally respect the love the fans have for it. It's much better than the 1979 film - less enamoured of its special effects, tighter, faster, but most of all: it puts the emotions of its regulars front and centre. One of the people on the planet is Chekob, Kirk deals with an ex and his son, Spock dies, Khan is after Kirk. It doesn't talk down to its audience.
The fans don't like this even though they did turn up and it's got the cast. The special effects are pretty snazzy - maybe lingered over too long. I think the core problem is the big emotional stakes - the spirit of the bald lady being possessed (Persis Khambatta) and the man who loves her (Stephen Collins) being affected - are "guest stars". This issue needed to be given to our regulars.
Still it's not bad. It's smart. Talky. Nice to see everyone, although only Spock has much to do.
Part of that weird early 70s enthusiasm for rodeo movies, this is arguably the best known, starring Steve McQueen and directed by Sam Peckinpah, although it didn't make much money.
McQueen is very cool and good. Peckinpah's direction is understated. The acting is fine. Robert Preston is flashy dad, Ida Lupino is harder mum, Barbara Leigh is the hot girl (that's about it). Joe Don Baker is excellent as McQueen's realestate brother. Ben Johnson is in it as some rodeo guy.
The movie would've been more exciting with McQueen as a gunslinger. Sorry, it's nice Peckinpah wanted to change pace, but the film is boring.
Aussies will like how McQueen buys Preston a ticket to Australia (Preston's dream destination).
All I really know about Gloria Jean is that she was Universal's back up Deanna Durbin but this debut starring vehicle is a charming tale, perhaps to be expected from producer Joe Pasternak (Richard Wallace directed).
It's a decent story - Gloria is a plucky 11 year old from a poor background with colourful uncles (including C Aubrey Smith) who wins a chance to go to summer camp. There's plenty of bitches but some nice sones too as well as pleasant counsellors Robert Cummings (his follow up to Three Smart Girls Grow Up) and Nan Grey.
The cast is full of familiar faces like Dickie Moore, Beulah Bondi, Billy Gilbert and Australia's own Cecil Kellaway. Cummings' part is quite small - he does get a funny scene where football fan Jean gives him some sass (heis character is a footballer). The subplot about a lonely girl and her divorcing parents getting back together is sweet.
Aubrey Smith does well enough listening to Jean warble. Cecil Kellaway does too at the start - he'd just done that in Mr Chedworth Steps Out.
Some good stuff here. Focusing on Germans in the Eastern front gives this a solid downbeat quality. Some excellent war scenes. James Coburn plays it straight, no joking, and it's a reminder that he can act. Max Schell and James Mason are on hand. It's long. Bad female roles again - rape victims, and Santa Berger as a hot nurse who roots Mason.
But Peckinpah resonated with material. Some good scenes. Much better than The Killer Elite I think being away from Hollywood helped him.
Odd melodrama with two sisters in love with the same guy - sophisticated Jean Muir and "homey" Laraine Day with Robert Cummings as the gyy. Muir and Cummings go to a party he gets wasted and insists on driving - but then she does it, she runs over and kills someone. He takes the fall. That's not a bad drama set up.
The film stacks the deck against Muir - who actually had my sympathy. She lies, Cummings goes "no I'd remember running someone over" which isn't true, Day instantly suspects her sister... A little more work and this could've been a lot better.
Day is sweet, Muir good and Cummings charming - the acting is a reasonable standard. And it's got MGM gloss. Cummings seems remarkably chipper the whole time for someone who is up for murder. He's chipper in prison, and chipper when he finds out he's innocent. The family of the guy Muir kills are forgiving - plucky stock working class types.
The film covers a lot of ground.
Interesting collection of elements. The feature directorial debut of George Sidney. An MGM cheapie so it's still pretty glossy. C Aubrey Smith. Based on an Ivor Novello play. Still feels English. Bob Cummings and Nigel Bruce are son and dad (?), fortune hunters - they love each other which is sweet. Cummings strikes up a nice relationship with Judith Anderson who is rich but falls for Ruth Hussey who he thinks is rich but is poor. Bruce gets gambling debts so Cummings gets engaged to Anderson. It's resolved too quickly.
It clocks in at 55 minutes. Maybe it needed songs. Hussey has no charisma no chemistry with Cummings who has to do all the heavy lifting. There is warmth in the Cummings-Anderson scenes and the Cummings-Bruce scenes.
The story is fascinating - woman meets serial killer on a dating show - but doesn't really have legs because she had the meeting and that was it. So the writer cleverly expands it by adding a woman in the audience who recognises the guy but is ignored, and there are flashbacks to other attacks, which are done well - including quite a sizeable role for Autumn Best who plays a runaway (this character is shown to be responsible gor getting the guy and good on Anna Kendrick for not hogging this role for herself0.
It's all done very well. A most impressive directorial debut.
(excludes TV which means no Ripping Yarns, Fawlty Towers)
1) A Fish Called Wanda - at his best Cleese really worked hard on scripts and it paid off brilliantly which is why Fierce Creatures is so hard to understand
2) Brazil - Terry Gilliam's brilliant take on 1984 a reminder of what he once could do
3) Yellowbeard - look I haven't seen this since I was a kid but I loved it as a kid
4) Clockwise - a stressful movie in many ways but very well done
5) Nuns on the Run - funny drag comedy that was a big deal in Oz when released but seems to have been forgotten
6) The Adventures of Baron Munchausen - intense, wondrous, imaginative - I pick it over Time Bandits
7) Labyrinth - the script is too simple but it was a wondrous element to it
8) Personal Services - untypical film, very well done
9) The Missionary - naughty and sweet, like Michael Palin
10) A Private Function - another strong effort from Palin
Good, solid soap. Intergenerational. Plenty of different motivations and clashing parties. Gorgeously shot. Pretty good acting. Some slightly smelly scenes that reek of pointless rewriting but the basic story holds really well.
One of the last leading roles from Peter Reynolds who is top billed. You'll recognise some of the other cast including Carol White.
Reynolds is part of a crime family. They're planning a job. They have to bust a brother out of prison even though he's not that keen to do it being with Carol White.
Reynolds lacks a little of his old humour and was looking puffy but he holds the screen I love that mum was part of the gang.
It's not bad. Feels like an ep of a TV series really but done with some pace.
Sam Peckinpah's famously mediocre last movie. Dutch actor Rutger Hauer plays an all American TV host who hosts weekends for his old college friends. Then CIA agent John Hurt (a British actor) tells him that his friends are spies. The friends are played by Dennis Hopper, Chris Sarandon and Craig T Nelson.
Actually this film wasn't as bad as I thought it was. I felt it was easy to fix - they should have told the whole story through Hauer's eyes. The reveals come when he's revealed. Also more characterisation work please - I couldn't tell the difference in personality between Hopper, Sarandon and Nelson.
Everyone had a blonde wife too - Hopper ( a sort of trashy hooker), Hauer (scary eyed Meg Foster who at least got to kill someone with a bow and arrow), Hurt (whose wife masturbates before being killed). Sarandon's wife was played by the woman who was Kris Kristofferson's sad eyed lover in Convoy.
The action scenes are done very well. The voyeur stuff is irritating - the CIA watch everything on screens. How did they film everything? I got confused in a lot of places.
This actually should have been a character piece - dig into the notion of friendship.
But I didn't mind it. I guess my expectations were super low.
Harry Saltzmann's anti-Bond is still about a sexy agent who beds women, has some sophistication (he's a cook), outsmarts the bad guys and is cocky to his superiors - but he wears glasses, is unapologetically working class, and there's nice touches about filling out forms and bureaucracy.
It's very stylishly directed by Sidney J Furie, clearly loving having more of a budget. The music score is very James Bond-y as are Ken Adams' sets.
The plot was a little confusing but basically it's whether Nigel Green is the baddie or Guy Doleman is the baddy. You know that Gordon Jackson is going to be killed.
Some Aussies in the cast like Guy Doleman and Ric Hutton.
A saloon owner, John Dehner, wants to buy Brian Keith's dog, Brown. Bruce Geller wrote this. Peckinpah directed.
Keith's character is drunk a lot of the time, Dehner is sly. There's plenty of production value - dancing girls and celebrations. It's not really funny.
Sidney Furie got his start working for Canadian television and this debut feature - entirely financed by his dad - feels more like a TV play. It's a simple tale of a couple who want to elope - both less than 21.
It's unpretentious, quite well acted. The adults come across as smug prats. We never get to meet the parents. Like a lot of films that feel like TV plays, it needed another key subplot.
Location filming helps as does the jazz score. Shane Rimmer, from many Hollywood films shot in the UK, is in it.
My opinion of this film hasn't really changed over the years - it's episodic, a film of vignettes rather than a cohesive whole. But the pleasures remain. It looks terrific, wonderful production design and locations. Some superb performances - David Carradine is electric, Keith and Robert very good, Stacy Keach a superb Frank James, the Guest brothers are fun as are the Quaids. James Keach is a little stiff as Jesse. Pamela Reed is splendid as Belle Starr as are James Remar and James Whitmore.
Frank Tashlin's directorial debut (as a feature) is a comedy about new parents Barbara Hale and Robert Cummings. Its a series of small vignettes - waiting for the baby to come, she even gives her will in case something goes wrong (not unreasonable at the time), scenes of grandmas and mid wives ripping babies out of mum's hands, struggle to get sleep, worries about finances which prompts Cummings to take a job he doesn't like
Tashlin's vision arrived pretty formed. There's lots of his touches, like jokes about sex (Cummings collects a hooker/floozy thinking she's a baby sitter), animation references (the family watch a cartoon)
I feel a third main character would have helped more - there's a nanny but even she's a little skim.
Still this is charming and sweet.
