Notorious as a film with no director credit - it was Brian McDuffie - and with the novelty of being set and shot in Blacktown and featuring a young Jon Blake. There's also Guy Doleman, Kit Taylor, Danny Adockc and some vaguely familiar female leads who I think did a lot of TV.
Various women are turning up dead but there's no suspense, no style, no gore, no nudity.
Haunting mood piece which owes more than a little to Cat People but is effective. Although low budget it benefits from location work at a sea fair. Dennis Hopper is excellent as a lonely, lecherous sailor who falls for a woman who may be a serpent.
Gorgeous, gripping, very accessible - everyone should be able to follow this story, it's a who dunnit (who owns the ear). Kyle McLachlan literally spells out the solution in his phoe calls. The sense of mood is captivating.
McLachlan is a solid Lynch surrogate, Laura Dern does wonders as the blonde (there's something ticking behind her brain), Isabella Rossellini is a standout as a traumatised, sexy, grieving, glamorous, severely mentally ill woman, Dennis Hopper is amazing as the yelling and terrifying Frank, Dean Stockwell impresses as the camp drug dealer.
The film just works with its combination of Americana, mystery, weirdness, underbelly, etc.
I don't know if Moore actually wrote this or if it was ghosted but it definitely feels like him, the wry humour, the self deprecation. He lived a glamorous life, lots of lunches and dinners, and exotic locations. Did plenty of charity work, especially for a "spastic" association as it was called then. I do think that generation had a greater public service aspect, at least in Britiain. His wife Luisa is often mentioned as a figure of fear especially when doing love scenes.
Antics with Jane Seymour and Gloria Henry, a good relationship with Guy Hamilton, hints at an unhappy Yaphet Kotto (who clashed with Hamilton and Moore says he played a joke on Kotto listing a black entertainer that Kotto criticised on the call sheet). Refers to a film that he hoped to direct, written by Bryan Forbes based on Moore's own story.
The references to other incidents in Moore's life are interesting such as a one night appearance on Broadway, acting with Lana Turner. Filming the Bond movie has some accidents but is pretty smooth.
Moore would have been pleasant to deal with after Sean Connery. He praises Connery, makes jokes about Harry Salztman beating him at cards. His behaviour may have been boorish if you weren't in the mood, but most people have nice things to say about Moore.
Entertaining.
Random notes
- I did an earlier review and my opinion hasn't changed much I think this is a solid entry
- superb galaxy of villains, all are strong: Kanaga, Tee Hee, Whisper, the cab driver, the singer - they are scary opponents
- Bond being a white man in an unfamiliar world helps add a lot of tension (though he can always draw on Felix Leiter for help)
- two annoying bits - the baddies constanly try to kill Bond as they should but then they later do it by putting him in an alligator farm and dangling over sharks instead of killing him - I mean, his escaping is fun but it's just a little silly
- Jane Seymour a little young but achingly pretty and a good actor - Roger Moore just young enough to not make it too icky (he gets her into bed by lying)
- Yaphet Kotto a superb actor and David Hedison was the best Felix Leiter until Jeffrey Wright
- fairly witty script full of memorable bits
- Roger Moore very confident from the get-go.
I think Corris got jazzed researching the wreck of the Dunbar - turned into a silent film. The action in the present day involves someone who may have inherited money from the wreck. Then it's ex cons, crims and cops with the setting in Newcastle giving it some variety. Perfectly fine.
Fun. Ticks all the boxes for the genre. Vicious lesbian guard. Showers. Mud wrestling. Escape. Revolutionaries. Third world setting. All the characters are different. It's made with energy. Star turns from Pam Grier, Roberta Collins. Sid Haig fun. The movie works. Stephanie Rothman had the film rewritten by Don Spencer - I wonder what her contribution was.
It's a shame she and Jack Hill seem to clash.
I watched this because it was on Tubi. Robert Shaw is credited as the star but he's not in it. The hero is Alec Cunes as Woodes Rogers, offering a pardon to pirates including Blackbeard. Ralph Smart directed.
It's fun. Low budget but big enough to have a pirate ship and taverns and costumes.
British musical which I don't think made much of a splash but is quite elaborate with large production values and elaborate dance numbers. Leslie Bricusse did the score which is fine - nothing memorable but pleasant enogh.
The star is Joe Brown who I'm not that familiar with. He's got a boy next door face and spiky blonde hair.
The plot has him as a fan of a French actoress (Sophie Hardy) who is in town looking for a hat. Like that's the story. It's got a dash of Roman Holiday and Hardy is far too attractive for Brown. Stubbs is the girl who loves Brown, I think. But more of a conneciton between lead boy and girl would've worked wonders.
Still Sid James offers from dependable support and the film's determination to be fun is endearing. They threw a lot at it. Sidney Hayers directs his little backside off.
Stars off as a heisty movie then becomes about a serial killer at the circus. One of many films round this time based on an Edgar Wallace story.
The last is heaps of fun - Klaus Kinski, Victor Maddern as crooks, Leo Genn as a cop, Suzy Kendall and Christopher Lee as circus folk. Never quite as much fun as I want it to be. Attractive women and circus stuff great like the mean little person just not enough of it. I got bored.
Starts off fantastically then sort of gets bogged down, doesn't seem to really dig into its concept or go spinning off in interesting directions and too much time is spent with Amy Schumer and her random attractive new friend. The best bits are those when the characters are bonkers and/or seem to be ad libbing.
Random thoughts:
- looks gorgeous
- Lewis Milestone doesn't understand story
- Maureen O'Hara was right how the original script was wrecked - does this mean her other claims in her memoir were right? That John Ford made out with a guy? That her husband was murdered? That Peter Lawford and Richard Boone were busted in a male brothel?
- Lawford and Boone are dressed the same but Boone makes all the decisions
- why set this in 1900?
- opening scenes may has well have been shot in Hollywood because they take place at night
- fascinating mess.
The rhythm is a little bit off in spots - I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Like Dalton's performance. And like that when it gets in the groove it's extremely entertaining. Myram d'Abo's character is sweeter than usual but it works for the story - an innocent in the world of killers - but they give her a world class skill (cello) and she's European.
Consistently strong action and a superb array of suppor characters - Jerome Krabbe's buoyant defector, Joe Don Baker's military enthusiast arms dealer, the blonde assassin, John Rhys' tough Russian, Art Malik's Afghanistan fighter.
Love John Barry's music score, the exotic settings, defending Gibraltar.
I don't know that much about Coscarelli despite him making some cult faves - Phantasm, Beastmaster, Bubba-Ho Tep. He had an amazing career, his first DIY feature picked up by a major studio as was his second. And Phantasm was a huge success. I wonder why he didn't do more. He was going to do Silver Bullet but it didn't work out he turned down Conan the Destroyer and Nightmare on Elm Street 2.
Interesting book. Perhaps overlong (could've done with less on screenings and the later films.)
Better than the movie. Makes more sense. Love letter to Bondi. More believable. Looking for Singer, like the final twist (he's causing trouble from beyond the grave to help his widow). The Anne character is kind of thrown away.
First Cliff Hardy novel. The plotting is a little dodgy but the feel is spot on - the humour, toughness, violence, darkness, sex, commentary on society. Hardy gets knocked out a lot, looking after a sister of a rich man - it feels like cobbled Chandler but that's okay.
Fun, irreverent, a good time. Maybe too much up its arse with film injokes and 80s power ballads. Also Emily Blunt's character is passive until the last 30 minutes. I'm just throwing theories here.
I wasn't a bad idea to make a Wombles movie even though the TV show only went for 5 minutes - there would be songs, it had IP, the film had a point of difference. But this isn't that good. It's hard to tell the Wombles apart there's not much of a story, the main girl is annoying.Fun to see David Tomlinson though.
The movie feels a little racially dodgy with how it depicts its Japanese character. There is no real life sparking off the screen. The clean up Britain message is not exactly sublte.
However if I saw it as a kid I would love it.
Bryan Brown is very good. So too is John Wood. Nice to see faces like Ray Barrett, Nick Tate (Coolangatta Gold connection with Joss McWilliam). Kerry Mack's Hilde is a pleasing nod to series continuity for the Cliff Hardy books.
But the story is hard to follow and doesn't seem to make sense. The final shoot out is fine as a shoot out but the character's actions aren't logical.
Many of Paul Cox's films were up his own backside but he had a very endearing affection for older people as demonstrated in A Woman's Tale and this which is about two former loves who find love later in life. Charles Tingwell and Julia Blake get a lead role in a feature which must have tickeled them pink.
The kids are played by Marta Dussledrop (his) and Robert Menzies (hers). The show is stolen by Terry Norris who plays Blake's cuckolded husband. Cox had a soft spot for cuckolds - they pop up in My First Wife and Golden Braid.
I love the nding where it builds to Tingwell dying of cancer... and then Blake dies. That was very smart.
This gave Cox a late period hit and helped him going for another decade or so. A quite lovely movie.
There's 8mm flashbacks of course and appearances from Chris Haywood and Norman Kaye. And smoe nudity from the Julia Blake film in flashback.
A surprise - obscue British musical from the mid sixties, with Bill Fury who I don't know much about. This had a decent amount of coin pumped into it, presumably after the success of A Hard Days' Night. It's packed with rock numbers - but also musical ones too.
I couldn't follow the story, not really, but there's a love for animals that's very endearing. (Fury owned horses IRL). Fury doesn't have the charm of Cliff Richard or the compulsive presence of Tommy Steele but he's amiable. Amanda Barrie is really sweet as the love interst.
Production values are high. Colour is gorgeous. Maybe three stars is too much but I liked it.
Super fun Carry On, one of the best in the series. The Roman setting acts as a massive energy boost, it looks splendid in colour, the sets and costumes impress, the cast have fun. Amanda Barrie is the title role, not given as much screen time as I'd thought. Kenneth Williams is a hilariously camp Caesar and Sid James a raucous Antony with Charles Hawtree as Seneca.
I don't know why the hell the Belgian producers thought they'd have an easy time with Paul Cox, the man was always his own box and had a long tradition of whingeing. I'm sure the producers were annoying too.
David Wenham tries his best but the sing song accent gets on the nerves. Location filming in Moloka helps marvellously. The stuff with the lepers is very effective and it's clear that this probably should've been done a lot cheaper just with Wenham and lepers.
Various names in the cast - Kate Cebrano (very charismatic), Peter O'Toole, Leo McKern. Aden Young plays a doctor probably wishing he had the lead. There's a scene where a doe eyed native girl is hot for Cox that feels old school Oz movie Cox.
I found it boring. None of the reationships Damien had were interesting. I kept waiting for the subplot of the leprosy local who inspired him. I guess there was Peter O'Toole and Chris Haywood.
But it doesn't touch. At least not me. Catholics might like it. They love Damien because he was such an admirable figure.
But personally I couldn't wait until this film was over. It's two hours.
Darling made so much money that MGM pulled out the cheque book for Joseph Janni, John Schlesinger, Fred Raphael and Julie Christie and went "take our money". So they did Thomas Hardy, presumably to give Christie a big fat lead role.
The film looks gorgeous - Nic Roeg shot it and it's full of his wonderful colour. It's made with taste and skill. Everyone can act. Peter Finch is superb.
But it's almost three hours, a Roadshow, and I didn't care about anyone. Julie Christie is beautiful and a fine actress but I just didn't care. Terence Stamp livens things up as a love rat but this could've been told in 90 minutes. Peter FInch is a drip for hanging around and so is Alan Bates. Schlesinger didn't connect with the material.
Honestly I would've prepared a sexed up Gainsborough melodrama version of this with Stewart Granger and James Mason.
Prunella Ransome has a showy role as Fanny.
An attempt by Rod Taylor to make something different, a mid life crisis story about a man whose wife won't put out but the wife (Carol White) of his best friend will. Phew. Not a good movie at any stage. I did like the stuff between Rod and his dad. Absurd ending with person being killed by toilets. Carol White, who needed special handling, doesn't work. Rod over-acts.
Ken Loach was unhappy with this film even though it was a hit. I really like it. I like the compromises. It's in colour, has a new star (Carol White), a more established star (Terence Stamp), a pop soundtrack (Donovan), it's in colour, has lots of sex. White has a healthy sex drive, a lot of charm.
White was bland in her later films but here she's relaxed and vulnerable and very winning. Stamp is excellent, charismatic and relaxed. Other actors very good.
I loved the little touches like White talking to camera and the chapter headings.
Paul Cox's run of art house successes enabled him to get $1.5 million and an imported star (Isabelle Huppert) for this but response wasn't that strong. It's not one of his better films although there's plenty of good things - it looks gorgeous, has a pleasant mood, Robert Menzies makes an impressive star debut.
I agree with co writer Bob Ellis that the basic set up is silly - Huppert is visiting friend Norman Kaye when she has her accident and sticks around in Australia to get better. If she was having lots of operations or had a job out in Australia, signed a contract or something , I'd get it, but she doesn't seem to work.. It's the sort of irritating, easy to fix script problem that marked many Cox movies.
Huppert has star factor but she's a debit to the movie, I feel - she doesn't seem engaged, whether it's being friends with Normal Kaye (why are they friends?), or going blind, or falling for Robert Menzies. I kept thinking "Wendy Hughes would've been better in this". I understand the useful ness of having an imported star, I just wish they'd gotten one whose presence made more sense and who was more connected to the story. French movie stars don't have a great track record in Australian films.
Other Cox movies have intriguing subplots that are typically under exploited. Not this one. Norman Kaye and his wide are dully. There's an extended scene where they watch some old ducks including Maurie Fields sing songs. I did like the satire of the community meeting. That felt very real and funny.
I liked the scene where Menzies revealed Huppert was his first girlfriend. That was touching. Really the film should've been about him - a blind man falling in love for the first time. That has stakes. Huppert doesn't seem to care. She's required to go nude of course just a little.
Paul Cox in selfless mode, a tribute to Sheila Florance. This is a litte mean but I could take or leave her acting but it's just so wonderful she's got this starring vehicle and she was dying and is making a film about a woman dying. I can't resist that showmanship!
There's a lot of love - for Florance, for the old, for life, Gosia Dobrowolska as a kind nurse who is using Florance's flat to root her married lover (this plot feels as though it's undercooked - Cox routinely under-services his subplots), Chris Haywood as her daggy but loving son, Norma Kaye as a dementia riddled neighbour (Kaye later had dementia), the shifty landlord.
Occasionally it lacks focus but it holds because of the reality and the ending where the nurse kills Florance in her bed which is so logical and true.
Much mocked but also much to admire - gorgeous colour, energetic direction from Robert Hartford Davies, plenty of talented acts. It's a juke box musical featuring an array of talent including Lulu.
The main issue is the story. It's a sci fi one, set in space about two warring nations united via love. But everyone sings Earth music. The story lacks any sort of reality. It just needed to be set on Earth in the real world. Add aliens if you want but it needs to have some solid basis.
David Stratton loved this movie, possibly in part because Gosia Dobrowolska takes her kit off and hooks up a lot with Chris Haywood. He runs an antiques store, gets a lot of sex according to him, has a deadbeat brother (Robert Menzies) and is having an affair with married Salvo, Dobrowolska. He finds some old golden hair and gets turned on by it.
Dobrowolska is married to Paul Chubb who is so amiable and lonely I didn't really like her for cheating - marriages don't work out, fine, but she's dragging the poor dude along.
Like many Cox films he has characters whisper thoughts on the soundtrack - the recording of Dobrowolska doing it was really irritating the volume was too high or something. He once more has fascinating support characters (Menzies, Jo Kennedy, Chubb) who could have used more screen time instead of the leads. He's also got all these women serving the needs of the male lead.
I just didn't care about the leads.
Looks gorgeous, like the ambition, can't fault the actors. Just disliked it.
Paul Cox's last feature. It starts off powerfully with sculptor David Wenham discovering he's got terminal cancer. This all feels real like you'd expect it would from a director who went through the same thing - a series of casual appointments, doctors being reassuring and not making eye contact, trying to be positive. Jacqueline McKenzie is excellent as the ex wife looking to re-insert herself in Wenham's life.
Like so many Cox films he lets himself down as a writer by not servicing his set up well enough. Wenham has a daughter but she is bright and lovely and that's it. They don't do anything with her, or his friend Kym Gyngell, or the other patients in his ward, or most damagingly McKenzie, who has terrific potential.
Instead he spends most of his time with Wenham and his dream love interest, Shahana Goswami: a gorgeous, calm, loving marine biologist - the Perfect Person. Oh and she's spiritiual too. And she cares him, loves him, gets along with daughter... then he gets a transplant. Yay!
Really, Wenham should have died and McKenzie should've caused more trouble. A Woman's Tale works because Sheila Florance dies. Wenham gets a happy ending. I'm sympathetic to Cox wanting to do that but it lessens the film's impact.
Yet the piece has power. It's well directed, the actors are solid, it has this incredible personal connection.
I minded this less the second time. The sex comedy stuff feels shoe horned in but at least it's lively. And there's something endearing about how nakedly the film tries to be commercial.
The odd structure comes from the book. Normally we stick with a detective the whole way and find out what he or she finds out. But here Malone's only in half the movie. The rest is flashbacks.
There's a little bit of a connection between Malone and Helga. I think it should have been a proper relationship - they dated. There's no Lisa, Malone is a stud.
The characters aren't that memorable - Helga is a minx, a Minister is stuffy, his wife is a dragon, a killer is sleazy.
There are some visual flourishes - an intercut sex scene a la Don't Look Now, the murder of Morris in the bowels of the opera house. I think the piece needed more. Some of the sets are ugly though the Sydney Harbour locations are pleasing.
I've read Cleary's script - it had Lisa in it but not his parents. Malone was more active. I think it needed really classy direction to work - or stars in support parts. The acting isn't good. I think I blame director Terry Ohlsson. Imagine what say Bruce Beresford could have done with this.
I think Paul Cox ran out of personal stories in the 80s so he turned to novels, which was an ideal step. This involves some brothers, led by Chris Haywood, who kidnap the granddaughter of a rich relative (Norman Kaye) but also pick up a nun (Gosia Dobrowolska).
Most of the film is Haywood being horny for Dobrowolska who is clearly not into it - Haywood is pudgy and sweaty basically trying to coerce Dobrowlska into sex. Cox plays the reality of it so we don't get trashy fun of the nun really wanting to be rammed by this hot criminal.
The film tackles interesting themes - class, sex, money. The character of the kidnapped girl isn't much - she's a kidnapped girl (played by Haywood's daughter). Haywood and Dobrowolska really commit.
Cox sets up a galaxy of potentially terrific support characters - black brother, mentally handicapped brother, slimy rich Kaye - but doesn't do anything with them. It's at least 40 minutes of Haywood coercing Dobrowlska into sex, she seems to do it and is clearly traumatised. Then he's shot dead. The end.
What's done is done well I just wished once again Cox had used a co writer because the script is so easily to edit - reduce the core couple, cut away to others.
Still, worth watching. I'm surprised how much I'm enjoying these Cox movies.
Oh and for all his endless complaining about mortgaging his house he spent almost $2 million on this film. The Australian taxpayer gave him a lot of money. I'm sympathetic, truly, but his films didn't have a great rate of return.
John Alderton is someone who should've been a movie star - he was going to play Flashman in Richard Lester's film of that novel but it was postponed, and when the project was reactivated in 1974 (a different novel Royal Flash ) Malcolm McDowell got the gig.
Alderton had a warm boy next door persona, amiable but not sleazy. I'm watching a bunch of EMI Films and the male casting never seems right - it was Alderton who should've been in Percy's Progress, All Creatures Great and Small, Journey's End.
He got his chance when Simon Ward didn't return for this. He's better than Ward but the film isn't as good because there's no real reason to make it. The first had this strong emotional core with Ward arriving in Yorkshire and trying to establish himself and falling in love with Lisa Harrow. That's all done and dusted here.
Anthony Hopkins isn't back and while Colin Blakely is a perfectly fine substitute it doesn't help the sense of continuity. Neither does the fact there's no Tristram.
I think this just should've focused on the war and done war nostalgia - having a baby, dealing with war stuff. That would've been a point of difference.
Don't get me wrong the film is done with taste, skill and all that - it's just this feels like an episode of a TV show whereas the first movie, because it had Herriot's arrival and the romance, felt more like a film.
Funny comedy with Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon battling over a wedding reservation - a decent idea, well developed. Ferrell and Witherspoon have different comedic styles - he's more up in the air she's more grounded. I didn't want to see them together - that doesn't become an issue for the last ten minutes or so. Maybe it would've been a better film with more obviously romantic co starring leads.I mean, he's ten years older which isn't that much by Hollywood standards but he seems older. I think mahybe Vince Vaughan or Ashton Kutcher would've worked more.
