Movie review - "Syncopation" (1942) **1/2

 Kind of the history of jazz - it acknowledges the role of slavery and the importance of black musicians, some of whom appear and even get lines of dialogue (not nothing in 1942 Hollywood) but the bulk of the running time concerns Bonita Granville, who plays boogie woogie and is loved by various musicians including Ted North and mostly Jackie Cooper. Adolphe Menjou is her dad but doesn't have much to do.

Plenty of music and guest stars. Major studio polish. First screen credit for Phil Yordan - some of it is set in Chicago. Granbille is a sweetheart. Never became a big star but always nice to meet her.

Best scene - a shoot out in a speak easy and Granville and Cooper kiss in silhouette. Could have done with more gangsters. 

Movie review - "The Bramble Bush" (1960) **

 Warner Bros tries to get some of that Peyton Place cash with this adaptaiton of secrets and lust in a small New England town. Richard Burton is a doctor coming home who tends sick friend Tom Drake who asks Burton to root his wife Barbara Rush; sexy nurse Angie Dickinson is having an affair with married Jack Carson but wants to hump Burton.

The film doesn't work. It's got some of the ingredients but there's no feel for small town life - there's not enough family drama. Burton needed to be Drake's brother and maybe even Carson's brother. There's too many middle aged people - it needed some youngies. I never thought I would write these words but it cries out for the Troy Donahue treatment.

Angie Dickinson plays it in the right style - her throwing herself at Burton is a highlight of the movie. Jack Carson can act but is too old and fat - the part needed someone sexy like one of Warner Bros TV stars like Clint Walker. Burton has charisma and the voice but feels out of place. He has this entertainingly bad monologue where he reminiscies about discovering his mother cheated. Barbara Rush is quite good but the film would be more fun with a Lana Turner/Susan Hayward.

Phil Yordan and Milton Sperling were credited for the script- they weren't the right people. They specialise in male tales. This needed someone more emphathetic to women. 

A fair bit of sex - Rush gets pregnant to Burton, Rush talks about the healthy sex life of her and Drake (which I didn't believe, neither actor give that impression, but it was refreshing to hear), Dickinson poses nude for a lecherous journo and we see her bare aback.

Misses the mark. But Dickinson good. 

Radio review - "Three O'Clock" (1949) ***

 Solid set up - Van Heflin decides to blow up his cheating wife, his house gets robbed and he gets locked at home, he realises the wife is innocent. The denoument feels vaguely unsatisfactory.

Fun in joke where Van Heflin refers to someone seeing The Three Musketeers at the movies - he was in it. Heflin is a strong actor and gives a fine performance.

From a Cornell Woolrich story. 

Radio review - "Suspense" - 2 versions of "The Black Path of Fear" (1943) and (1946)

 One with Brian Donlevy, the other with Cary Grant, same script basically from the Cornell Woolrich novel which works as a short story.

Wonderful sense of doom to start off with. Decent ending. 

Movie review - "The Seventh Sin" (1957) **

 A complete hash by MGM. In the 1950s they remade a lot of its old hits - not a bad idea especially if they had colour and proper stars. This has cinemascope but is in black and white and inappropriate stars.

The throughlines of Somerset Maugham's novel is clear - a woman is silly and selfish, has an affair, realises her husband isn't that bad and the guy she cheated with is useless. That doesn't come across here. 

The script is partly to blame - it introduces the lover (Jean Pierre Aumont) but then gets rid of him; we never see him again or his wife. But mostly I think it's the casting. Eleanor Parker is lovely, and a competent actress but is far too sensible for the lead crying out for original choice Ava Gardner, or Elizabeth Taylor or simply someone more of a hot mess. Bill Travers is amateur hour as the husband. He needs to be in love with his wife but hating it, and heroic, but he can't do it, Aumont is just whatever. George Sanders steals the film as a quippy doctor where the big reveal is his wife is Asian and happy because he's docile. Sanders sound have played travers' part. Or Aumonts'. Gosh, imagine Tom Conway and Sanders in this.

The shoot was difficult - Ronald Neame and David Lewis were sacked - but the film was dead to begin with due to casting and inept script. 

Book review - "The Black Path of Fear" (1944) by Cornel Woolrich

 Never read him before. Writes divinely. Gets off to such a brilliant start with its sense of doom - lovers fleeing husband. Then she's killed. It is strong for a while - he meets a mystery woman - then feels padded. Perks up with him murdering the husband. But you can see why it made a solid 30 minute radio drama.

Movie review - "Studs Lonigan" (1960) **

 Phil Yordan had success adapting a sexy novel with God's Little Acre so did this one too. It's not very good. It's dull. It tries. Who cares about the book. Some sex but tame. Christopher Knight can't act. I think his voice is dubbed. Poor Jack Nicholson is in it as a mate - how must he have felt. Frank Gorshin is in it. Venetia Stevenson too. People like Dick Foran.

The film is full of talent. Yordan, Nicholson, Haskell Wexler, Jerry Goldsmith.

Like I say it tries. It's just not a compelling story. Lots of voice over to cover it. There's confessing to the priest at the end - Yordan used this in Edge of Doom and The Bravadoes. 

Movie review - "God's Little Acre" (1958) **

 A big deal in its day - a famous horny Southern eccentric book, which took more than twenty yeras to be filmed. It comes across as boring about tiresome people though the cast is interesting: Aldo Ray, Robert Ryan (paw), Tina Louise, Fay Spain, Vic Morrow, Jack Lord, Michael Landon as an albino. Ryan's hee haw character got on my nerves. I know such people existed. I just got tirin.

Fay Spain and Louise are the horny ones. But theren's not a lot of sex.

It picks up in the second half when the work gets more political

Movie review - "To Be Or Not to Be" (1942) *****

 What a wonderful film. Such an immaculate script, beautifully structured. Perfectly cast - Jack Benny is so winning, and hammy, and human, and fun; Carole Lombard is seductive, and smart, and warm, and narcisstic and brave. The plot is logical and clever, there are twists and turns, the Nazis are dumb and smart, the victories are hard worn.

I love the depiction of the Lomard-Benny marriage - she's always flirting perhaps more with others but doesn't want to leave her husband (and she doesn't change her ways even at the end). Robert Stack is engaging as the flier who loves her. 

What a great last credit for Lombard. What a triumph for Benny and Lubitsch and everyone.

I had a soft spot for the Mel Brooks remake but this is perfect. 

Movie review - "The Big Combo" (1955) ****

 Fantastic film noir from director Joseph Lewis and writer Phil Yordan, made for Yordan's company in association with Cornel Wilde's. The movie established Wilde as a producer which extended his career; he gives one of his best performances too as a cop driven to take down Richard Conte (replacing Jack Palance at the last minute but Conte's superb). Jean Wallace is excellent as Conte's traumatised wife, while Helene Stanton almost steals the movie as Wilde's sexy, lonely girlfriend, aware her boyfriend is hung up on Wallace.

Very strong support cast - Brian Donlevy as henchman number one, with Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman as henchmen two and three (who sleep in the same room).

Beautifully shot, dynamically directed. Amazing sequences such as Wilde being tortured and Donlevy being shot. Did Yordan actually write this one? If so he should be very proud. 

Movie review - "Mulholland Drive" (2001) ****1/2

 Excellent neo noir with Naomi Watts stunningly good. Everything clicks. Fresh faces, handling, dead bodies. Story makes sense.

How good is it Ann Miller got a decent role? 

Movie review - "Woman Who Came Back" (1945) **1/2

 Decent knock of off Cat People from an "idea" by Phil Yordan who bought a script from another guy. Made by Republic who did the odd horror - decently directed. Nancy Kelly is the woman who thinks she's something Bad - in her case a witch.

The film would have been better if someone had done something bad - once Kelly discovers her ancestor wasn't a witch she's cured. There's no real baddy. The townsfolk are mean but no one goes all out. Someone should have died. Ruth Ford as another woman looks as though she's going to do something.

The terrible John Loder is alas the male lead. The director deserved a better male lead and a story with more sting because he did a good job. 

Movie review - "The Bravados" (1958) *** (warning: spoilers)

 A forerunner to the spaghetti Westerns in a way - downbeat, lots of rape, dialoue stripped back. Gregory Peck is after the gang who raped and murdered his wife. They are played by decent actors - Stephen Boyd (effecitve as a villain), Lee Van Cleef, Henry Silva and Albert Sami.

There's a lot of religious hogwash - a know it all priest, and Peck feels guilty for killing the men when he finds out they didn't kill his wife after all... tbough they're still killers and thieves and rapists. Boyd rapes Kathleen Gallant.

Joan Collins is always likeable but is miscast really - she can't even run properly. Gregory Peck didn't like playing a vengeful character but he's effecitve.

The scenery is stunning. (It was shot in Mexico). Henry King directed - writer Philip Yordan didn't like his work and maybe it needed someone more in your face but King tries.

I got a little  confused about the geography. It felt like the characters were riding around in circles.

Movie review - "The Chase" (1946) *** (re-watching)

 Beautiful photography. Great turns from Peter Lorre and Steve Cochrane. Nice atmosphere. Robert Cummings is interesting. So is the film. It hops around. The "it's all a dream" stuff is silly but writer Yordan makes it work by turning it into PTSD. Michele morgan is weak. The film builds to a tragic ending and whimps out by being happy.

Movie review - "The Harder They Fall" (1956) ****

 Bogart's last movie was as good as any to go out on - a tough, cynical look at the fight game with bogie as a promoter who works for crooked Rod Steiger in pushing dodgy fighters.

Phil Yordan wrote a tough, fast script full of cynicism and bite, from Budd Schulberg's novel. Mark Robson's direction is full og energy - the fight scenes, locked rooms, behind the scenes machinations.  Steiger is excellent as is Bogart. I wish a better actor had played the dodgy fighter - Yordan wanted Victor Mature.

Jan Sterling is a good actress, she plays Bogart's wife. Doesn't have that much to do but she's effecitve. I love the punch drunk fighter. 

 I liked this movie, It stayed with me.  

Movie review - "Edge of Doom" (1950) *1/2

 A nadir in the career of Sam Goldwyn, this is an endless, turgid, boring, repetitve account of a young man (Farley Granger) with a chip on his shoulder who's mother is dying who kills a priest in a fit of anger and that's about it.

Full of repetitive story beats. Dana Andrews is a smug priest. There's about ten minutes of story. Dud love plot. Granger tries but has to play the same note again and again.

This film was so bad.

The photography was very good. It's polished. The acting was fine. 

Movie review - "House of Strangers" (1949) **

 Full of potential - a story about a dodgy Italian American banker and his four sons, a riff on King Lear and Joseph and His Brethren ... based on a script by Phil Yordan who often adapted classics. (Though the script was rewritten by Joseph L. Mankiewicz).

But it's boring. There's yelling and Italian accent acting and the movie badly lacks star power. Edward G Robinson has charisma as dad but isn't in the movie enough - ditto Susan Hayward who is sexy. There's too much Richard Conte and his brothers, who all feel undercast (Luther Adler, Efrem Zimbalist Jnr, Paul Valentine) and not different enough. 

It needed stars like Victor Mature or at least really different characters.  It needed more sex and violence - they needed to be gangsters.

I didn't care about any characters. Especially not Richard Conte's. Not dramatised - Hayward should be in a love triangle with two brothers or something.

Nicely shot. The piece has tremendous potential. But it's weirdly undramatic. 

Movie review - "Anna Lucasta" (1949) **

 Philip Yordan's play based on Anna Christie was about polish Americans then reworked to be about black Americans, became a hit, but this version is white. No one seems well cast though especially not Paulette Goddard. Actually John Ireland fits in - he's good - as Goddard's first boyfriend.

Goddard wasn't allowed to be a hooker in this screen versino, so she's a girl in a beret who hangs out at a bar. Her family asks her back. She has a romance with William Bishop, very dull and too handsome to be in need of a wife. 

It feels like a stage play with long scenes, and expositionary dialogue, and lacks the intensity that it would have had on stage. I can't see why this became a hit, even with a black cast - this might be why the piece is so rarely revived. 

Oscar Homolka lumbers around as Goddard's dad, dying off screen. Broderick Crawford booms around as a brother in law. It was hard to care. 

Movie review - "Paint Your Wagon" (1969) **1/2

 Big and silly and cost way too much but the locations are gorgeous, there's some nice tunes, and it's sweet to see Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood and Jean Seberg in a musical. Everyone is trying. Seberg is more animated than in some of her efforts. Clint is getting into it too, and it's so novel to hear him sing, ditto Marvin. Decent tunes.

The movie never quite fixes on its story. The central conceit is Seberg winds up with two men but  it never really goes into that. We all know Seberg will be with Eastwood it's not a threat. There's no threat. The action dragged when a young man was introduced and this whol plot started in the third act.

The town collapsing is fun, the running time long, some nice tunes. This killed Josh Logan's movie career. 

Movie review - "Suspense" (1946) ***

 Monogram's first "million dollar movie" didn't need to cost that much - it's a rather stock, albeit entertaining noir about a drifter (Barry Sullivan) who works for a rich man (Alfred Dekker) and falls for the man's wife (Belita) and murder results. It reminded be of The Chase also written by Phillip Yordan. Belita was a skater though and there are lots of skating production numbers - it's a noir with skating. Which is different. 

And director Frank Tuttle tries and does a neat job. Nice mood. Sullivan is fine, and Belita ordinary off the ice, but they're trying too - Bonita Granville is too young really but very good as Sullivan's ex and I liked Dekker and Eugene Pallette (Dekker's offsider).

Stylish and moody. Belita isn't one of the great noir heroines but I liked it. Yordan's script is simple yet effective. 

Angie Dickinson Top Ten

 An under-rated actress.

1) China Gate (1957) - gets a terrific opportunity as a Eurasian hooked, super sympathetic.

2) Dressed to Kill (1980) - a splendid role, beautifully acted, gives it tragic dimension.

3) Big Bad Mama (1974) - glorious fun.

4) Rome Adventure (1962) -  steals the movie.

5) Point Blank (1967) - very sympathetic, seems like a gangster girl. I prefer this to The Killers.

6) Pretty Babies All in a Row (1970) - wild movie, she fits in.

7) Sam Whiskey (1969) - fun Burt Reynolds film and she teams well with him.

8) The Chase (1966) - hectic, sprawling, entertaining.

9) Rio Bravo (1959) - too young for the Duke but fun, I wish Hawks had used her agaim. 

10) Captain Newman MD (1964) - sure, why not. 

Movie review - "The Sweet Ride" (1968) **

 Interesting. Odd. 20th Century Fox's attempt to jump on the beach craze came out late, was serious, had a middle aged star (Tony Franciosa) and adult plots but had some young talent, notably Jacqueline Bisset (inexperienced but gorgeous), Michael Sarrazin (pretty but blank with nothing to play), Bob Denver. Franciosa ensures someone can act. It's super serious despite the presence of Denver and being produced by Joe Pasternak. There's a bike gang but it's serious.

Tom Mankiewicz wrote the script which is full of zingers, not many funny.  It's not a comedy it's a drama with zingers. I think they were going for a big screen Peyton Place with some beach tropes.

Harvey Hart tilts the camera and a few other things. I wasn't sure if Sarrazin assaulted Bisset, who I think was into masochistic sex or something. There's these random characters like Bisset's producer (she's an actress) and Denver's girfriend Michele Carey and a biker guy and a cop. 

Movie is confusing. It's called a programmer but what's its genre?  

Movie review - "The Tarnished Angels" (1957) *** (warning: spoilers)

 Has a big rep and it's a well made film. I wasn't as wild about it. Story isn't strong - Rock Hudson tries as a boozing journo impressed by some fliers after World War One. He has strong chemistry with Dorothy Malone (who's very good) the wife of flier Robert Stack. They have a kid. Stack dies, kid bawls which is traumatic.

Beautifully shot. Interesting. Just a little underwhelming. Malone gives best performance. Stack is stiff. Hudson tries but isn't up to his role. 

Movie review - "The Blackboard Jungle" (1955) ****

 Dore Schary had mixed results at MGM but this is one of his better efforts - social realism done with flair. Works emotionally because the whole thing is about bullying - the kids bully each other and the teachers. Glenn Ford isn't much of a teacher, violent, and sulky. Anne Francis assumes a female teacher who was almost raped was asking for ti, and gets jealous of Ford and the teacher.

Ford is well cast with his constipated Einsenhower Era tension.  Sidney Poitier is electric. Vic Morrow very good. The kids are great. Anne Francis whines. I enjoyed the weaker teachers.

Movie review - "Bug" (2006) ***

 William Friedkin returns to his roots with a play adaptation - a piece by Tracy Letts about a woman (Ashley Judd) going a little mad, being smacked around by Harry Connick Jnr and forming a bond wth a war veteran (Michael Shannon).

There's a hot sex scene involving Judd's body double and she and Shannon go. The handling can't be faulted or the acting but the whole way through you just feel this would play better on stage.

Movie review - "Rules of Engagement" (2000) **

 The film starts strongly with two excellent battle sequences - one in Vietnam, then an embassy siege/massacre. William Friedkin directs with real flare. Then Samuel L Jackson is put on trial for war crimes and Tommy Lee Jones called in to defend him. 

The movie is set up to be an interesting account of what a war crime is. We saw what happened. The troops were shot at but Jackson went berserk. They fired into the crowd. There were other options.

But then slimy diplomat Bruce Greenwood orders tape suppressed that shows Arabs shooting at them and all complexity is thrown out the window. The fact that Jackson could have responded in different ways (shoot snipers, shoot over heads, etc) is barely explored.

This movie is just dumb. I think Friedkin was dumb down deep. I sense the original script you never saw the massacre which would've been interesting because you never knew what happened. But here we see it at the top of the film. So there's no suspense. No revelation.

I'm not sure Friedkin understood drama. 

Movie review - "Ensign Pulver" (1964) **

 Joshua Logan sooked a lot about the film version of Mister Roberts but got a chance to make his own version, this sequel without Roberts who died in the original. He assembled some promising names but stuffed up with Robert Walker Jnr in the lead, a gawky Jim Hutton type who isn't up to Jack Lemmon. Burl Ives seems too fat and old and not scary for a captain.

The story is dumb. Burl Ives bullies, Walker wants to be a doctor (boring), Tommy Sands' child dies so he goes a little mad, there's an interlude on an island with Millie Perkins as a nurse, Ives and Walker are on a raft. The story misses Mister Roberts but it's also not good. I did like Ives realising he's not fit for command, that's a bit different.

It's interesting to see people like Jack Nicholson, Larry Hagman and James Coco as sailors.  Walter Matthau is strong as the doctor. Pretty photography.

But the film was just annoying. Walker too. 

Movie review - "None But the Brave" (1965) ***

 Frank Sinatra's one movie as director is surprisingly gutsy - anti war, very sympathetic to the Japanese, long scenes of Japanese chatting. Some Japanese are stuck on an island - Americans crash. They fight then form a bond then fight. There's a lot of camraderie and men on opposite sides making eyes at each other.

Sinatra is in it but the biggest role goes to Clint Walker who is bland and solid. Tommy Sands is terrible - he made a choice to use a silly voice and it sinks his performance. The Japanese actors are strong. Nicely shot.

I don't think Sinatra was Charles Laughton but this impressed me. 

Movie review - "The Hunted" (2003) **1/2

 The last of William Friedkin's four Sherry Lansing movies came and went in theatres quite quickly but is a decent action thriller with Benicio del Toro going on a killing spree and his mentor Tommy Lee Jones being called in to track him down.

The movie's main problem is aching familiarity. del Toro is tormented and Jones is tormented and one chases after the other and there's Connie Nielsen as a plucky FBI agent and a couple of red shirts to be killed and some girl ni del Toro's past.

A few of the fight scenes in the bush are well done  - maybe the whole film needed to be set in the bush, but they capture del Toro and he escapes in the city.

This was fine. 

Movie review - "The Guardian" (1990) ***

Often called Friedkin's worst movie but Deal of the Century is far worse, and I enjoyed it. It's silly, of course, a druid sacrificing babies to trees, and random rapists who appear in the forests to die, and you can tell Friedkin was going through a custody dispute with its emphasis on the father, the untrustworthy nanny, etc (though it's not as divorced dad a movie as Rampage). Still it works on a certain level.

I loved the way the movie was shot, there's effective scenes of the house at night with a late night DJ talking (playing Aussie songs from The Triffids and Not Drowning Waving), and the tree is creepy. Memorable sequence with that architect character tracking Seagrove in the forest and regretting it.

I think the movie should have been more about the mum, Carey Lowell - who is required to scream and look dumb too much (though she is allowed to fight at the end). Seagrove should've seduced the husband (played by someone caled Dwier Brown) who should've died. 

Jenny Seagove has a high old time running around nude covered in much.  The climax is a lot of fun with Brown chainsawing the tree and Seagrove duking it out with Carey Lowell.

Full of plot holes and places it needed to be tightened but I had a good time. 

Movie review - "Rampage" (1987) **1/2

 I think William Friedkin was a dumb person who read a few books so people thought he was smart. This is about the capture and trial of a serial killer. We get scenes of the killer murdering one family (middle aged woman and her parents) then another (mother and small child) which have power to shock and Friedkin then proceeds to stack the deck in favour of the death penalty by showing the killer to be a complete psycho who giggles and smiles and kills three more guards to rub it in, and kills a kid, and calls the prosecutor at home. And the psychiatrists let him out and lie on the stand - I think Friedkin was going through a custody dispute at the time.

The court arguments and look at the legal system feel dumb, with Michael Biehn invoking the Nazis and lots of yelling. Did the author of the book on which this is based, a lawyer, have a say in those scenes?

Michael Biehn isn't much - he was effective in support movies but on his own he shouts. Deborah Van  Valkeberg has nothing to do as his wife, except cry about their dead daughter - she could have been cut out of the film, and probably should have been.

None of it feels real. I will say that the movie had a compulsiveness to it - it's not boring like The Brinks Job or Deal of the Century. It's nutty Friedkin jumping up and down and yelling at clouds. 

Movie review - "The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond" (1960) ***

 Decent A minus gangster biopic, done with pace by Budd Boetticher. I'm not a huge Ray Danton fan but he's fine. Karen Steele is bad as his dim true love. Elaine Stewart is fun as a minx. Dyan Cannon is really fun as a moll, Warren Oates strong as Danton's brother, Richard Gardner excellent as Mad Dog Coll ditto Robert Lowery as Rothstein.  It's got some "Psychology" (he pushed everyone away!) but it holds dramatically.

Movie review - "Deal of the Century" (1983) *

 Having shown he couldn't do comedy in The Night They Raided Minsky's and The Brinks Job William Friedkin showed it again with this flat satire of the arms industry. People who work in that arena are inherently unlikeable but they can be made compelling - but Friedkin directs sluggishly, Chevy Chase is miscast, Sigourney Weaver flounders.

When Wallace Shawn shoots himself it perks up briefly. That's what the movie should have been - real stakes. 

It's bad. Flat. Unfunny. You don't care. Greg Hines could be cut out of the film. Not drama. Just odd. 

Movie review - "The Exorcist" (1973) *****

 It all clicked for William Friedkin - he got the perfect material for his documentary style of filmmaking, and also casting. Ellen Burstyn is a consistently strong actor. The X factor comes from Linda Blair (likeable, relatable, heartbreaking) and Jason Miller (often overlooked but tormented, tough, smart, soulful, excellent, I appreciate they didn't play a love story with him and Burstyn).

The film works so well for many reasons but mostly this - an outlandish story is treated totally seriously. A child is ill, the mother does everything she can, the doctors try everything they can but it doesn't work. And this is primeval because when a child is injured you feel so helpless. 

The movie Burstyn is starring in looks terrible - a campus protest film! 

Book review - "Chasing the Panther: Adventures and Misadventures of a Cinematic Life" by Carolyn Pfeiffer

 I read this because I was keen to read about Pfeiffer's adventures as a producer in the 80s with Alan Rudolph, Chris Blackwell, Shep Gordon etc but there is very little of that. This memoir is mostly about her time in Europe in the 60s - as a student, then working in Italy as Claudie Cardinale's assistant, meeting people like Burt Lancaster, Visconti, Delon and Fellini, then working for Delon (being raped by one of Delon's dodgy bodyguards), then Omar Sharif as an assistant (shagging Robert Bolt), being friends with Nathalie Delon and Geraldine Chaplin, becoming a publicisit then eventually working for Shep Gordon, hanging with Robert Altman, dope with Blake Edwards. 

It's pretty interesting stuff - having Sean Connery put his hand on her leg while Diane Cilento was there, a fling with photographer Terence Donovan etc. There is heart break - a daughter (son of an affair with a married man) dies as a child, she finds true love with a journalist who dies of a heart attack. I wish there had been more on her work as producer. But I enjoyed the book.

 

Movie review - "The Brinks Job" (1978) **

 William Friedkin recovered from Sorcerer with a light take on the Brinks robbery which based on this wasn't that interesting. They robbed a bank and stole a lot of money and... That was it. The people aren't that interesting either - just a bunch of old character actors doing schtick. Peter Falk, Paul Sorvino, Warren Oates, etc.

The movie lacks life and energy. It throws in gags with big props but Friedkin doesn't have a feel for comedy. It comes alive once or twice - J Edgar Hoover blaming it on commies, the cops interrogating a gang member by beating him up. Apparently heavy scenes of the mob beating them up were cut. That was a mistake. The movie works better when it's heavier.

I think Friedkin was too spooked to make this well. 

Movie review - "The French Connection" (1971) ****

 William Friedkin's background was in documentary but his first four movies comprised of two musicals and two play adaptations before he was given a documentary style story: the tale of busting a heroin ring. Luck fell his way - the perfect star Gene Hackman, an ideal producer in Philip d'Atonini, a story that suited him (violent, grime), Ernest Tidyman knocked the story into shape (though Friedkin downplayed the result but Friedkin wrecked too many scripts to take him overly seriously).

Superb support from Tony Lo Bianco, Roy Scheider, Frenando Rey, Marcel Bozzuffi. Random scene where a TV star from France is interviewed. Popeye Doyle is very destructive and a not particularly competent cop. Visceral chase scene - Popeye really could call the next station (and you could cut the scene from the film story wise).

Simple story - padded out with chase scenes, and tailing scenes - is given life via energy, fresh treatment, actors. 

Movie review - "The Boys in the Band" (1970) ****

 Like The Birthday Party this is again a filmed play but simply has more energy, structure, and life to it. Mart Crowley's work is as significant but it is more compelling than Pinter, to me at any rate. The cast repeat their stage performances. There's a lot of standing around and watching someone else act but there is variance in the character types - the married couple, the camp one, the dumb hustler, etc. Much of it became cliche/tropes, and this had to struggle under the burden of being "the gay play" for a long time, but it was written from a place of truth and has aged well.

Movie review - "The Night They Raided Minsky's" (1969) ***

 Interesting. A movie famous because the editor claimed he saved yet. Yet it's not a classic or a big hit. I think it did okay. William Friedkin admits he didn't do a great job. Yet it wasn't At Long Last Love or Lucky Lady.

Decent production value. Too many characters to service - Forrest Tucker, Elliot Gould, Norman Wisdom and Bert Lahr feel underutilised. Jason Robards no chemistry with Britt Ekland - their romance is yuck. Ekland doens't have anything to do really until the end.

But it moves. It's colourful. There's great actors. 

Movie review - "The Birthday Party" (1968) **

 The photography is stunning, the art design perfect, the acting excellent. Good on Friedkin for making it and Palomar (ABC) for backing it. It's a faithful version of the play.

I note Pinter's talent. But sorry this is a 40 minute story at most. It might play better on stage with the intensity of the actors being there. On film it doesn't work.

If you love Pinter go for it. 

Movie review - "Johnny Doesn't Live Here Any more" (1944) **1/2

 Simone Simon's accent limited her job offers but she's a cutie in this sweet screwball comedy - she lives in a flat where keys have been given to servicemen and shenanigans ensue. There's a fantastical element about gremlins introduced but not developed - they may as well have cut it out.

Directed by Joe May. I couldn't tell the men apart aside from Bob Mitchum who appears at the end. I like how everyone liked Simon and she was spending time wondering who she'd be with.

Not a masterpiece or even that funny but high spirited. 

Movie review - "Good Times" (1967) **1/2 (re-watching)

 Sonny and Cher film was financed by Steve Broidy, formerly of Allied Artists, and randomly directed by William Friedkin.

Fun sketches. But they're sketches. It's like an episode of a variety show. Dumb plot where George Sanders offers to fund a movie and then insists on them sticking to a dumb script and threatening to sue Sonny and Cher and the singers stick to their guns and Sanders respects him. That's dumb. Don't sign the contract, dude. Smart arse boomer stuff.

One stand out number - "Good Times" with dancers. Fans of the duo will enjoy it. Should've been made for not much money. Went over budget due to Friedkin. Not dull. 

Movie review - "Shalako" (1968) **1/2

 The press got hysterical about this movie - Sean Connery in a Western. Connery appearing opposite Brigitte Bardot. 

It's a strong story, and looks great (vistas etc). But it's an ensemble piece - sort of like Stagecoach, about Europeans on a hunting trip encountering Apaches. There's various subplots like Jack Hawkins' wife Honor Blackman having it off with Stephen Boyd. Connery is a former cavalry officer who advises them to get out and they odn't.

There's too many characters to service so the strong cast don't have anything to do. Connery and Bardot don't have anything to play. They should have written him as taciturn and explosive but unused to women - or something. He's just a guy. She's just Bardot, and not attractively costumer. Honor Blackman is better because she's got something to play. Connery isn't even that tough - he doesn't do much through the film.

There's also Peter Van Eyck, Eric Sykes, Alexander Knox, Woody Strode. 

Also never makes sense why posh types are hunting in New Mexico which is really rocky and desert-y. The plains would have made more sense. 

Movie review - "Premonition" (1972) **

 Alan Rudolph's first movie as direcotr is hard to get through. Some hippy goes to the desert with a professor and sees something weird, then years later the hippy and his band members go out there and sense weirdness.

It's so padded. I kept waiting for weird stuff to happen. Just felt like lazy dope smoking movie making. There's even a  pretty girl to soothe the hero's furrowed brow. 

No characterisation. Best moments are the bit towards the end where someone gets lot in the desert and dies. I wish this had been a proper horror film. Amateurishly made. 

Movie review - "The Secret Lives of Dentists" (2002) **

Nicely acted and stuff but there's not enough story here for a feature. Campbell Scott is a dentist worried his dentist wife Hope Davis is cheating. He has fantasies, spurred on by visions of his cranky patient Dennis Leary and hot receptionist Robin Tunney.

Scott has a lovely speaking voice and can act but isn't that compelling - it would be fun to watch, I don't know, Woody Allen be racked with jealousy. I didn't care about him, or his marriage. Sorry. The details of modern marriage all felt real - logistica of kids who are often sick etc. I just didnt think it was a feature.

Maybe it would work better as a play - the intimacy, the actors up close... 

Movie review - "Mortal Thoughts" (1991) **

 The basis of a decent thriller - two female friends (Demi Moore and Glenn Headley), one married to an abusive man (Bruce Willis) who winds up murdered. But the relationships are undercooked - most crucially the two female friends. We never get a sense of what makes them tick or anything. Why they're mates. (They probably should've been sisters.) Moore's marriage to John Pankow isn't really interesting. There's a lot of Willis being snarly.

I know Rudolph came on after the director had been fired and the acting is fine if New Jersey accent-y (with terrible hairdos to match). It's just hard to tell.

It's like at heart a thriller but it's been given indie treatment and had all the fun sucked out of it. Needed to give Moore a sexy guy, have a few double crosses. There's lots of Harvey Keitel interrogating. Not a lot of surprises. 

Movie review - "Made in Heaven" (1987) **1/2

 Alan Rudolph tries studio filmmaking and turns it into an independent film. This cost a lot of money but it didn't have to - it would be better if it was cheaper. Tim Hutton falls for Kelly McGillis in Heaven and tries to find her in the real world.

Debra Winger is an angel, Ellen Berkin is a devil. Tom Petty pops up as does Neil Young.

The movie has a compelling dream like state. There's a structural issue in the second half as both characters draft along in Earth waiting to meet. In Sleepless in Seattle Meg Ryan knew about Tom Hanks and tried to meet him, and discuss him; he came into contact with her. Here Kelly McGillis has relationships with Tim Daly and another guy. Hutton drifts. It's frustrating. It's like they don't deserve true love or something.

Best bit is Hutton meeting his own parents. 

Movie review - "Songwriter" (1984) *** (warning: spoilers)

 It starts as a mess with random voice over and choppy editing and feels haphazard but I went with it because everyone seems to be having a good time - Willie Nelson in a lead, Kris Kristofferson as a mate, Lesley Ann Downe as a new singer, Richard Sarafin as a villain.

It ambles along, plenty of songs, better casting than Roadie. It's probably at heart a **1/2 movie but I loved the ending where Nelson sells Sarafin Downe's contract and she becomes a Born Again! I loved that. 

Movie review - "Return Engagement" (1983) ***

 Alan Rudolph's documentary is one of his least personal but most interesting film because it's about two nutters - Timothy Lear, pro drug advocate, and lunatic G Gordon Liddy.

Liddy's wife appears with black eyes. 

Janet Leigh Top Ten

 1) Psycho (1960) - famous scene but also a genuinely nuanced performance as a frustrated woman who makes a bad decision - Vera Miles doesn't have what Leigh had

2) Touch of Evil (1958) - passive (kidnapped) but she has an inner steel

3) Living It Up (1954) - really fun Martin and Lewis movie and Leigh matches well with Dean 

4) Scaramouche (1952) - honestly her character is a ninny and not in Eleanor Parker's league I just love this flm 

5) Little Women (1949) - the most nothing role in the story but she's ideal - she fitted in well at MGM

6) The Manchurian Candidate (1962) a sex positive woman chasing after Frank, from Leigh's hot streak of classic movies

7) The Fog (1980) - she's fine rather than great I just love the movie

8) The Vikings (1958) - lovely and warm in a movie that needs it

9) Houdini (1953) - perhaps the best film she made with Tony Curtis, very winning

10) Harper (1966) - one of many stars.

Movie review - "Endangered Species" (1982) **1/2

 Alan Rudolph tries again to go commercial in this conspiracy/government film about cattle mutilations. Robert Urich is amiable but miscast as a burnt out cop with a grown daughter - Rudolph's choice of Bob Mitchum would've been better. Jo Beth Williams is lovely as the local cop in a small town where cattle are being killed. Hoyt Axton is a local rancher. Peter Coyote is military with an absurd moustache.

The film clearly has beats it should hit - paranoia, conspiracy etc. Rudolph who specialises in light hearted mood and sexiness isn't really suitable.  The music sting is dumb. The ending is unsatisfactory.

Like Roadie this doesn't hit the exploitation beats it needs to - scares, violence, thrills.  You never believe Urich and that kid are related. Still the movie has a sort of charm - its laid back nature does help sell the story. It feels like it's in the country. 

It's not bad. It's just underwhelming.

Movie review - "The Stalking Moon" (1969) **

 Made by classy people - Alan Pakula, Robert Mulligan, Gregory Peck, Alvin Sergeant, Eva Marie Saint - but it doesn't work. The music score is silly and the story dragged out too much. It should be simple and terrifying from the get go. Gregory Peck and the soldiers rescue Eva Marie Saint and the others too easily. There's too many people around. The film should have kept going right after all the people at the stage coach post are slaughtered - there's this gap where the stagecoach appears and Peck takes them to his farm. The people making this know acting and that stuff but not how to create suspense.

Robert Forster is in the movie to die, so is Russell Thorson. The little kid is stakes - there's little exploration of the fact he wants to go back to his dad.

Not very good. 

Movie review - "Roadie" (1980) **

 Alan Rudolph was in director gaol after Remember My Name so took a studio gig though it was still New Hollywood - anarchic rock and roll film about mechanic/roadie Travis based on an alter ego of a Texan writer.

It's clear what this should be - a romance between Travis and a groupie. Only he looks old and she's meant to be a sixteen year old virgin so that's yuck, even for 1980. And I get why Meatloaf was cast and he's got energy but he doesn't have warmth and the center to play the lead - maybe John Belushi could have pulled it off. And Kiki Hunter isn't right. Meatloaf's family are haw haw caricatures with OTT acting. There's no heart. The movie needed to be made by Alan Arkush or someone. It also needed more 1980 nudity to be freank.

I was disliking this film intensely but it does get better when Debbie Harry and Alice Cooper appear. They are natural and play themselves. But the two leads have no chemistry and both feel miscast.

Movie review - "Terror Circus" (1974) **

 Alan Rudolph's second feature had him called in to re-shoot a movie that had been started by other fands. It's about three girls traveling in the desert who meet a mystery man (Andrew Prine, a familiar face) who kidnaps them. He's got all these other women captured and he does weird stuff.

Solid basic idea, probably needed some more gore and exploitation. Starts well and ends well with the reveal of a monster scarred by atomic testing.  The middle is a slog - needed a subplot or two. 

Prine gives a strong performance, the girls are pretty. I enjoyed it more than some of Rudolph's other movies.

Movie review - "Ray Meets Helen" (2019) *1/2

 I'm glad Alan Rudolph got the chance to make a movie and that Keith Carradine and Sondra Locke played lead roles and it's about a romance between older people. Also fun to see Samntha Mathis, Keith Davis and Jennifer Tilly have something to do. Carradine has some raffish charm and I enjoyed him playing the piano.  

But it's not very good. It's slow. Locke is clearly unwell and isn't great.  The fantastic elements - Locke continuously seeing a dead Mathis and so on - don't work. The movie feels cheap.

Movie review - "Equinox" (1992) **1/2

 The tale of two identical twins, separated - both played by Matthew Modine. One is a shy type the other is a gangster. Shy guy wants Lara Flynn Boyle, lives next to Marisa Tomei, has M. Emmett Walsh as a dad; gangster lives with Lori Singer (wasted), works for Fred Ward and with Tate Donovan.

The acting is strong across the board - Modine is excellent.  Lovely mood. Erratic middle. Interesting ending. I'm still thinking about it.

Movie review - "Investigating Sex" (2001) **1/2

 A stronger Alan Rudolph movie - it benefits from an interesting idea (a salon of men discuss sex in 1929 with two female stenographers getting involved), a solid cast, some sex.

The chats aren't that interesting and indeed have dated in many ways - Gen Z are a lot more ahead of the group. Salon chat is hard to dramatise. It's stronger in scenes of peeople being affected by what's going on, particularly the women. The movie should have swapped some male characters for female and told it from female point of view. People like Julie Delpy and Tuesday Weld are under utilised.

Robin Tunney and Neve Campbell are stenographers.  

Like a lot of Rudolph movies it feels like a Woody Allen film without as many laughs.  The movie has strong moments then long period of blah. I gave it a half star because it had more energy and the good bits were good. 

Less characters would have helped incidentally. 

Movie review - "Trixie" (2000) **

 Emily Watson doing Americana, a security guard and aspiring private detective. Her accent and malaprprisms get on the nerves as does the... I don't know, the "whatever" of it all. She investigates a crime, has some entertaining chats with Nathan Lane, has a romance with Dermot Mulroney, interrogates Nick Nolte, hangs out with Brittany Murphy who would be better in the lead.

I liked Murphy and Nolte and the movie got better. But - whatever. 

Movie review - "Breakfast of Champions" (1999) *

 Bruce Willis took a lot of risks at his peak, one of the reasons he became so successful - for every Pulp Fiction and Sixth Sense there would be something like this. I haven't read the novel. It's untypica of the output of Alan Rudolph - more fast paced.

I couldn't follow what was going on. I didn't care. People like this movie. I found it confusing. Couldn't care about its take on American society.

Amazing cast - Albert Finney, Omar Epps, Barbara Hershey, Lukas Haas, Shawnee Smith, Will Patton, etc. 

Movie review - "Afterglow" (1997) **

 Nick Nolte and Julie Christie are a couple having issues - he's a handyman who cheats on her. He hooks up with Lara Flynn Boyle, horny and underserviced by husband Jonny Lee Miller who hooks up with Christie.

The female ingenues were often the strength of Rudolph movies eg Lori Singer in Trouble in Mind, Linda Fiorentino in The Moderns and that's the case here - Boyle is lively and energetic. Christie is excellent. Miller and Nolte are fine. 

You know what my issue was with this film? I didn't like the characters. I didn't care if anyone stayed married or had kids. Boyle's character was such a simpleton, Miller seemed so unengaged his his marriage, fuck Nolte for rejecting his daughter. I think because children were involved their antics got to me. 

I just didn't care. 

Movie review - "Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle" (1994) **1/2

 Another Alan Rudolph film that doesn't quite get there. It looks nice, has fun moments and it's entertaining to see all these figures. But the central relationship doesn't land - Jennifer Jason Leigh's Parker and Campbell Scott's Robert Benchley. For whatever reason in these scenes both feel like actors rather than real people. The relationship between Parker and Charles MacArthur (Matthew Broderick) seems more real. Maybe because Broderick has more energy. Or because something happens - they shag, she gets pregnant - as opposed to just pining.

Leigh is at times affective, but at other times the drawl overpowers the movie and drags it down. Gwyneth Paltrow is fun as a shallow starlet.  Nice to see Jennifer Beal, Andrew McCarthy, Stanley Tucci, etc. 

I wish Woody Allen did a version of this story. 

Movie review - "Love at Large" (1990) **1/2

 After half an hour I was ready to write this off but then Elizabeth Perkins starts interacting with private eye Tom Berenger - she's another private investigator - and the film lights up. It never quite gets there - Rudolph keeps setting his films in la la land when they should just be based on some sort of reality. But he allows actors the chance to shine - Ann Archer has fun as a femme fetale and Perkins is lively so is Berenger and Kate Capshaw. 

Movie review -"They Shoot Horses Don't They?" (1969) ****

 They were right to sack James Poe - this needed a proper director. The Hunger Games ripped this off down to the fake marriage. Jane Fonda is superb as the broken yet defiant competitor. Gig Young also magnificent- haunted, doomed, ruthless, not without sympathy.

Susannah York goes mad, Red Buttons dies of a heart attack, Bonnie Bedelia is pregnant, Bruce Dern is her husband. Michael Sarrazin looks on, worried - he's not in Fonda's league but he has a great look. 

It's a film about self destruction. The movie warns us up front. Amazing direction. Pefect production design. I love the sea side setting and use of waves in background. 

A triumph for ABC Pictures. 

Movie review - "The Moderns" (1988) **1/2

 I wanted to like this more than I did - setting of Paris in the 20s, cameos from Hemingway and Stein, art, Keith Carradine as an artist offered to do forgery. It's effective and Linda Fiorentino is magnificently sexy, John Lone is fun. Genevieve Bujold is under used again - do better Alan!

The film is two hours. It's ambling. Needed more sex and laughs and satire. There's a boxing match and other scenes. Too much time was spent on development. I wish it had been made in the late 70s as planned.

Movie review - "Trouble in Mind" (1985) **1/2

 Alan Rudolph's success with Choose Me made it a little easier for him to raise finance for his next movie, this neo-noir about a man out of prison (Kris Kristofferson) whose paths cross with a couple (Keith Carradine, Lori Singer).

This is two movies really - a more serious noir, with Kristofferson kicking ass and falling for Singer, and gangsters - and a campier way out one with Carradine having wacky hair and Divine playing a gangster (quite well). The tone isn't quite right it feels inconsistent.

Singer is lovely, Carradine has a ball, Kristofferson isn't bad, Genevieve Bujold feels a little under utilised. The movie doesn't quite work tonally but I enjoyed the love story with Singer and Kristofferson and the violent bits do keep things going.  

Movie review - "Choose Me" (1984) ***

 Alan Rudolph's one hit - a minor hit but it made a splash, helped by having some names in the cast (Keith Carradine, Rae Dawn Chong, Lesley Ann Downe, Genevieve Bujold). Carradine is another f*boi sleeping with Chong, Downe and Bujold. Chong is married to Patrick Bauchau (excellent) who is sleeping with Downe, who listens to sex talk back Bujold who moves in with Downe without saying who she is.

It's familiar to Welcome to LA  - there's even a sountrack of the one artist. It's always watchable. Carradine's character is unstable, so is Downe's, so I guess it'll work out. There was something lacking in this for me - wasn't quite sure. Maybe it didn't feel like a progression from Welcome to LA. 

Movie review - "A Man Called Horse" (1970) **1/2

 The public liked it - more sympathetic to Indians than normal though it distorts as much as traditional Western, throws in some exotic ceremonies, and is still about a white man who manages to survive, shag a native girl, and become a leader. Richard Harris holds the screen, the direction is poor, the colour enjoyable.

Movie review - "Remember My Name" (1978) ***

 Alan Rudolph's fourth feature, though second "proper" one, is full of interesting moments, including a lead for Geraldine Chaplin and Tony Perkins as a stud opposite his wife Betty Berensen. Perkins and Berensen are married when his ex Chaplin gets out of prison and chaos ensues.

The film keeps you guessing.  No one feels entirely well cast but everyone works. There's an unsettling mood of madness, violence and sex. It's got a standard set up but it's given a non-standard production.

Movie review - "Welcome to LA" (1976) ***

 Washed over me and I went with it. Sort of Son of Nashville with Keith Carradine as a fboi musician once more, only this time in LA. Carradine is back in LA and old flame Viveca Linsfors wouldn't mind shagging him but instead he shags real estate agent Sally Kellerman (married to John Considine), a receptionist Diahnne Abbott, model Lauren Hutton (mistress to Carradine's dad Denver Pyle), and Geraldine Chaplin (married to Harvey Keitel). Kellerman and Considine try to hook up with other people but wind up together. Sissy Spacek is seeing Keitel and offers to sleep with Considine for money.

Carradine has a silly beard. The movie has a wonderful tone. Spacek goes topless and Chaplin full frontal - the seventies! 

Movie review - "The Sons of Katie Elder" (1965) *** (rewatching)

 So much great stuff I wish it was better - John Wayne being manly, Dean Martin as his brother (great team), the concept, the locations, the colour, Dennis Hopper as a coward (fantastic work), George Kennedy as a gun man. Henry Hathaway. But too much much is underwhelming - Earl Holliman (in the film to die basically but I wish he'd had more to play), Michael Anderson (less good than original choice Tommy Kirk), bland Martha Hyer.

Lots of fun still - just could have been a classic, that's all. 

Movie review - "Southern Comfort" (1981) ****1/2 (rewatching)

 The most incomptent soldiers ever? Stealing boats, losing maps, going nutty, yelling, lighting fires, counting chickens before hatched... It feels very real. Magnificently shot and acted. I love the relationship between Powers Boothe and Keith Carradine.

Movie review - "The Warriors" (1979) **** (re-watching)

 Great fun and style. Love the differentiation in the warriors - the gay artist (well, coded gay), the dumb big white guy, cocky Ajax, taciturn Swan, the whimpy white guy who gets knocked out. Spooky sequences like the baseball furies and the Lizzies though I have a soft spot for the Orphans, desperate to prove they're cool.

Keith Carradine Top Ten

 

Re watching Southern Comfort (1981) prompted me to revisit Keith Carradine's filmography. I haven't seen all he's done, esp in recent years, but his run in the 70s-80s alone is easy for a top ten.

1) McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971) - one scene but maybe the best scene in the movie

2) Thieves Like Us (1974) - astonishingly good and touching in another Altman masterpiece

3) Nashville (1975) - another Altman: I'm not actually a huge fan of the movie but he's terrific

4) Emperor of the North (1973) - counter balances Marvin and Borgnine wonderfully

5) The Duellists (1977) - I feel like this movie gets rediscovered every seven years or so; he's great

6) Pretty Baby (1978) - this film would be illegal if made today - he's very good

7) The Long Riders (1980) - the brothers should've worked more together, they all rock in this.

8) Choose Me (1984) - I'll put this in for all the other Alan Rudolphs I haven't seen

9) Chiefs (1983) - splendid mini series

10) Southern Comfort (1981) - my favourite Carradine performance I wish he and Powers Boothe had worked together again

NB recognise he has done much fine work post-1984 this is just to cover that first 15 years

Movie review - "Rio Lobo" (1970) **1/2 (re-viewing)

 Not a good movie but I enjoy it, with its 70s hair, John Wayne beaming at the inadequate supporting cast, Jorge Riviero not up to it, neither Chris Mitchum or Jennifer O'Neill, but Jack Elam fun, and plenty of random helpers eg Shelley Lansing.

But no one has much of a character to play - Victor French (baddy) has a clear goal (money) as does O'Neil (revenge) but everyone else feels sketchy. 

Movie review - "Up the Creek" (1984) ***

 Loved it as a kid, the three stars is generous but it's fun enough, helped by decent production values (Oregon location, rapids, bars, extras, a mini flood) and a classy support cast: James Sikking s in there, John Hillerman. Tim Matheson is full of handsome confident swagger that promised a stardom which never came; the bloke from Porky's seems a little lost, Stephen Furst is fat, the nerd is an alcoholic which is interesting. Jeff East is an ideal villain. Jennifer Runyon is very sweet as the love interest - she and her friends are very sexually aggressive and not punished. Blaine Novak's Coyote-style army villain entertains. Cheap Trick didn't like its theme song but I felt it was fun.

I'm not objective about this film but it's fun. One of Sam Arkoff's post AIP efforts.

Movie review - "Hang 'em High" (1968) ***1/2

Overshadowed in memory by Eastwood's Leone films but a very good, tough Western with a superb support cast including Charles McGraw, Bruce Dern, Ben Johnson, Inger Stevens, Dennis Hopper, James Macarthur, Pat Hingle, etc. Interesting views on law and order, well motivated Pat Hingle.

Book review - "Vera Miles: The Hitchcock Blonde Who Got Away" by Christopher McKittrick

 Miles was a solid, pretty actor who delivered solid performances over the years, including some classics - The Searchers, Psycho, The Wrong Man, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. I think it's fair to say she's no one's favourite part of these movies but she doesn't let anyone down. The most interesting thing about her career is Hitchcock was briefly obsessed with her and wanted to star her in Vertigo but she fell pregnant and he ended up using Kim Novak.

This is a conscientous, dogged book, like a Miles performance, not that gripping - her life and career wasn't that interesting. She had a few divorces, the Hitchcock interlude... that was about it. She seems like a nice person who married a few dodgy men. The book might've been better putting more dates and credits in an appendix than the text.

Movie review - "El Dorado" (1966) ****1/2 (rewatching)

 I like spending time with these people. Loses half a star for the Chinaman sequence. Wayne is excellent, Mitchum fun, James Caan great, Michelle Carey energetic, Charlene Holt winning, Chritospher George impressive, Ed Asner is fine. Memorable action. Wonderful mood. Makes me feel good. 

Movie review - "Mr Soft Touch" (1949) **

 The idea for this isn't bad - gambler on the run from cops seeks reguge at refuge run by a social worker. But it's not developed well. Glenn Ford is okay as the gambler but they don't give him a decent character to play - he needed to be an extravagant flash harry type, full of charm. Evelyn Keyes is all wrong as the social worker - this should be a sweet demure type to get comedy conflict but Keyes gives off the impression of having been around the block. Terry Moore, say, would've been better.

I didn't like this film. It wasn't funny or that charming, it felt confused, and with miscast leads. Dick Powell was once going to make it with June Allyson - that would've made a lot more sense. 

Movie review - "The Presidio" (1988) ***

 Quite fun. Great star power from Sean Connery and Meg Ryan (doing wonders as The Girl - though she has an arc, being a hot mess). Mark Harmon very likeable. Some okay action sequences. Nothing that memorable but just old school 80s action with fun people. 

Movie review - "When Harry Met Sally" (1989) ****

 Some of humor has dated - attitudes, rather. Sally's orgasm is actually out of character for her - but what a scene. Beautifully directed. Meg Ryan is the heart - so good. Funny, gorgeous. Billy Crystal rises. Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher excellent. Made with such love. Woody Allen given the proper schmaltz treatment.

Movie review - "Stage Struck" (1958) **1/2

 I get the rationale - RKO remaking its back catalogue, get exciting new stars (Susan Strasberg, Chris Plummer) and director (Sidney Lumet), add colour. But Morning Glory didn't just launch Katherine Hepburn the film was all about how great Hepburn was - magnetic, talented, etc. So you'd better cast a Hepburn. From this period maybe Kim Stanley could have pulled it off. Or Anne Bancroft. Someone really great. Strasberg is pretty and sweet but not up to it - when she does soliloquies watched by everyone at a party you feel bad for her. To rub it in Plummer moons over her so does Fonda so does Herbert Marshall and then the critics.

Also Strasberg is meant, I think, to be this likeable stage struck kid but comes across more of a manipulative socipath like Eve in All About Eve - she sleeps with producer Fonda (more than 30 years older), gets writer Plummer to fall for her, enchants actor Marshall, manages to get cast in the lead after diva star Joan Greenwood leaves. We're supposed to find the final farewell between Strasberg and Fonda moving I think - Christ, she's 30 years older.

I think this film killed Strasberg's movie career before it began. 

Sunny side - looks good, Lumet loves the theatre, Plummer is relaxed and believable as a slightly stiff writer, Fonda is strong. 

Movie review - "Jolson Sings Again" (1949) ***

 Less story but this means Larry Parks can act a little more and have a more fleshed out romance - with Barbara Hale who is sweet. Lacks the original's energy but has plenty of colour and songs. Memorably bizarre bit where Parks as Jolson meets Parks as Parks.

Book review - "We did okay, kid" by Anthony Hopkins

 Is Hopkins a great actor? He's been great - Silence of the Lambs, Howard's End - but  a lot of dreck. Hollywood thinks he's great - Hollywood is like that. It was Hollywood who kept his career going when he walked out of the National in the 1970s.

Hopkins always seemed like he had his head in the clouds. This confirms it. Internal. Quiet. A loud alcoholic.

The book livens up in some spots - being sledged by Paul Sorvino making Nixon, discussing his process in Silence of the Lambs. I wish there had been more of that. But I think he lives in Hopkins land. This is low on anecdotes and actors insights. 

Movie review - "Mister Scoutmaster" (1953) **

 Clifton Webb starts the movie giving money to scouts and married and his wife wants to adopt a kid, so already this film is less fun. They should have made this film about Belvedere hating kids and being forced to run the scouts, but instead he volunteers and the kids are a little energetic that's it.

There's a decent subplot about a lonely kid from a crap family - played by that kid who was in Gentemen Prefer Blondes. That works.

But they don't lean into the fun of Clifton Webb doing it. Anyone a little gruff could've played the role. 

Movie review - "Pink Flamingos" (1972) **

 Technically rough. Not much of a story. It dragged. Water got better at filmmaking later.Retains power to shock and offend - Divine gives her son oral sex (a scene cut when I first saw it), there is rape with chickens. 

It drags in places. Great showmanship. Remarkable collection of grotesques. Plenty of influences. Divine is a genuine star. Edith Massey has magic as does Mink Stole.

Movie review - "The Gambler from Natchez" (1954) ***

 Entertaining Southern about soldier-gambler Dale Robertson avenging the death of his dad. Good solid melodrama - his father was a gambler, he's helped by low class spit gire Debra Paget (similar to Cigarette from Under Two Flags ) and her dad Thomas Gomez (very fun) romances high class gal whose brother (Kevin McCarthy) is a cad. Slavery is almost entirely ignored though there are a few black characters. There's a duel at the end with swords and an earlier one with pistols.

Decent production values and novel setting - it does lack a really strong star. Dale Robertson isn't a Tyrone Power or Tony Curtis and the film needs it. 

Movie review - "The Jolson Story" (1946) ***1/2

 The film is hokey but it works. The colour, the enthusiasm, Larry Parks' energy - he's unremarkable in so many films but playing Jolson forces him to be more active. The movie completely works on its own terms.

Evelyn Keyes is alright - anyone could have played that role. William Demarest plays William Demarest. It hops along. There's a lot of blackface. A lot.

Movie review - "Let's Be Happy" (1957) **

 Random British musical which is very American in feel including director, Henry Levin and two stars, Vera Ellen and Tony Martin. They are talented but very much B list.

The story is weak. It's Cinderella only Vera Ellen isn't that poor or suffering and has no wicked step mothers or step sisters. She has no character. Neither does tony Martin - he sells washing machines and sings and is meant to be a play boy but that's it.

They should have kept Martin singing constantly and Vera Ellen dancing constantly.  

Book review - "Joan Crawford" by Scott Eyman (2025)

 Very good book. Eyman loves to step up when redeeming maligned figures. He's sympathetic to Joan but doesn't gloss over her negative qualities. Solid research. A few too many smart ass asides.

Book review - "Deliver Me From Nowhere" by Warren Zanes

 Read this specifically to see if there was a movie in it. There isn't. Sorry. Haven't seen the movie. But it's a chapter, not a whole story. As a book it's fine because it drills down into songs and so on. But no sweeping narrative. Well written and researched. Springsteen comes out of it well.

Movie review - "The Guilt of Janet Ames" (1947) *1/2

 A film with its head up its arse. Starts alright - Rosalind Russell walks in front of a car, we wonder why, boozy journo Melvyn Douglas investigates in part because he knew her dead husband, she's got PTSD from death of her husband, she resents the survivors.

But then - ugh - Douglas asks her a bunch of questions and we go into dream sequences of meeting the people whose life her dead husband saved. They include newcomer Betsy Blair wife of some dull soldier, and Sid Caesar who does an unfunny though energetic seven minute comic routine. 

Psychology dramas work best when there's some secret and/or social point ef Suddenly Last Summer, Home of the Brave. This is just bad.

Problematic shoot Producer writer Virgina Van Upp clashed with Charles Vidor and quit, Vidor quit. 

This film was inept. 

Movie review - "The President's Lady" (1953) **

 The story of Andrew Jackson and his wife, best remembered for being bigamous.  Charlon Heston plays Jackson in his typical dogged, conscientous way. Ditto Susan Hayward as is lady love. Slavery and Indians are dealt with as you'd expect, i.e. mostly ignored - Hayward has a black maid.

The story constantly has Jackson going away, which isn't that interesting. Look, this is fine. Acting fine, treatment fine. Lacks fire.  I didn't care for the characters. Might be different for Americans with more of a connection to Jackson.

Movie review - "The Lonely Man" (1957) **

 Solid story but of a type that would become over saturated on TV - gunslinger tries to connect with long lost son despite other outlaws being on his tail. Superb villains - Neville Brand, Claude Akins - but Jack Palance is awkward as the gunslinger and never convincing for a second as Tony Perkins' son. Perkins is a lousy cowboy. (It's amazing how often he was miscast in his career.)

Moody, lots of chat. They could've livened it up with action but they don't. More typical of director Heny Levin's Columbia films.  The idea of Palance going blind had huge potential they don't do enough with it.

Movie review - "Convicted" (1950) ***

 Solid melodrama which benefits from its well-honed story, already filmed twice before. Broderick Crawford and Glenn Ford are ideally cast as a DA/warden who takes an interest in prisoner Glenn Ford.

Crawford plays a real bleeding heart - giving Ford arguments to get out of trouble, criticising Ford's lawyer, lets Ford drive his daughter around, goes above and beyond helping Ford get parole..

The relationship between Dorothy Malone and Ford is quite well done mostly because of the stars. I wish it had an extra beat/complication.

Well handled from director Henry Levin. Beautifully shot. John Ireland turned down a role in this - foolish. His sexiness and threat would've worked well, better than the old character actors. 

Still, enjoyable prison picture. 

Movie review - "A Nice Little Bank That Should be Robbed" (1958) **

 Why did they make this? To cover overhead? It's in CinemaScope so black and white. Maybe they needed a vehicle for Tom Ewell. Maybe Buddy Adler was impressed by The Lavendar Hill Mob.

Wacky heist comedies can work if you like the heroes. Tom Ewell, Mickey Rooney and eventually Mickey Shaughnessy try but aren't that. Why should we care? Why not make the bank slimey? Why not have a villain? Why does Dina Merrill (Ewell's girlfriend) look so bored? 

Henry Levin shoots the script as usual.  He makes mistakes like directing the victims of the robberies as scared - if they'd been mean and horrible it would be more fun.

The final heist takes forever. A poor movie. 

Movie review - "Night Editor" (1946) *** (warning: spoilers)

 This was meant to be a series but you can kind of see why it didn't result in one - it's low concept (journalists read out stories). Fine for radio anthology, not for recurring series.

This has a strong story - William Gargan is a cop cheating on his wife with a dame. They see a murder. He has to investigate it. He can't reveal what he saw.

That's strong. So is Janis Carter as the married rich woman, aroused by violence, who stabs Gargan. The film really should have ended with him dying.  Gargan isn't quite handsome enough for his role but plays pain well. Jeff Donnell (a female) does what she can as the ever lovin' wife.

Some decent support players wonderful photography. Columbia's B section was strong. The device of using journalists talking about it wasn't necessary. 

Movie review - "The Farmer Takes a Wife" (1953) **

 Not much of a musical though Fox splashed the cash on some decent sets and costumers - it's almost overproduced. Some of the tunes aren't bad. Betty Grable seems unsure. She wears huge dresses and is a cook on the canal. She has no chemistry with Dale Robertson who is alright but really has no business being in a musical (a John Payne would have been much better.). Their romance involves him rough handling her. Thelma Ritter's part is too small.

Occasionally comes alive - a dance Grable does with Gwen Verdon, I think, and there's a decent brawl on a boat at the end.

But this isn't much. 

Movie review - "The Man from Colorado" (1948) **1/2

 Harry Cohn supposedly assigned Charles Vidor to this to torment him - maybe, as Vidor always wanted to leave Columbia, but it was a class "A" Western in colour with two big-ish stars, Glenn Ford and William Holden, and a lot of psychology.

The story is of interest with Ford suffering badly from PTSD post Civil War and getting over keen as a judge, and his fellow officer Holden as a marshall. The film can't quite get its story right - the elements are there (they both love Ellen Drew, there's a solid subplot about mistreatment of veterans) but the action doesn't build. Holden and Ford needed to be in more confict sooner. It doesn't happen to the last bit. And even then the film feels reluctant to have Holden and Ford do a showdown - they keep using third parties.

Quite a big role for Jerome Courland as a southerner. It's a film that tries but pulls its punches. Right wing screenwriter Borden Chase did the story - presumably left wing Ben Maddow wrote the anti miner stuff.

Movie review - "Run for the Roses" (1977) *

Dull boy and horse story with some pretty Kentucky scenery. Henry Levin got this job because he did April Love. The pace is sluggish everyone seems bored.

Ida Lupino was going to be in this then dropped out and was replaced by Vera Miles. Stuart Whitman is there. Sam Groom. Lisa Eilbacher! The film avoids conflict.

Occasionally of interest. Documentary style footage of a horse race and horse operation. A fire sequence.

But it's pretty dull. The producers were crooks, that's of interest. 

Movie review - "The Devil's Mask" (1946) ***

 Lovely photography, mood, and story telements - shrunken heads, butlers killed, women going mad, leopards.

But the problem is the same as The Uknown  the third in the I Love Mystery series - this was the second - in that the two leads are shoehorned in. The heroes are really Anita Louise (woman investigating death of her father whose head may have been shrunk) and Michael Duane.

Still, a killer leopard gets you a lot of points. 

Movie review - "Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die" (1966) **1/2

 Silly Eurospy spoof from Dino de Laurentiis which gives you everything you need from a Bond spoof - mad villain (Raf Vallone) with outlandish plan, hero agent (Mike Connors), female lead (Dorothy Prvine), exotic locations (Brazil).

Connors is a little dull as a hero but he's offset by Provine and Terry Thomas in an outrageous rip off of Lady Penelope and Parker from Thunderbirds - they're a lot of fun.

Critical reception was hostile, in part I think because so many films like this were then being made. But the time of this genre has passed so we can appreciate that Provine never got another role this fun, and Connors didn't get another chance to run around Brazil, nor did Terry Thomas to play a skilled secret agent. 

Movie review - "Crime and Punishment USA" (1959) **1/2

 Launched George Hamilton. Roger Corman had money in it. Interesting rather than good. Good things about it - photography, ambition. Felt a little like Night Tide  - low budget, jazz, art hosue links. George Hamilton's performance and character all over the shop - sometimes arrogant, other times idiot, sometimes sympathetic. Why does Mary Murphy's hooker go near him?

Best moments are when the cop interrogates him. Also the creepy guy who leches after Hamilton's sister is effective. But the film is tonally inconsistent. And has too many characters to service - the sister, the mother, the guy, Hamilton's friend. It feels undefrcooked. 

Still, worth watching. 

Movie review - "The Unknown" (1946) **1/2

 The last in the I Love a Mystery trilogy has many wonderful things - splendid photography, sets, Old Dark House atmosphere - and starts very well, but there's not enough plot to justify a feature. Also the two leads, the investigators, don't need to be in the film, they feel shoehorned in. The film gets off to a flying spooky beginning but becomes bogged down.

There's a lot of hammy Southern acting which is part of the fun. 

Movie review - "Scout's Honor" (1980) **

 Henry Levin died of a heart attack on the last day of filmng apparently. The film is dedicated to him. I wish it was better. This is dull and slow. Set up has potential - high falutin Katherine Helmond is assigned to manage a scout troupe including Gary Coleman. But Coleman's mischeviousness is restrained, Helmond pulls back. There's no villain, no stakes. The last half hour they're stuck in a cave. There's no life, no vivacity, no fun. 

Coleman still has a lot of charisma. He deserved a better vehicle as did Helmond. I probablt would have liked it was an eight year old because I loved Coleman.

Movie review - "The Desperadoes" (1969) ** (warning: spoilers)

 Odd sort of late 60s Western from oldies - Henry Levin, Irving Allen, Jack Palance - with the spaghetti influence, also more violence. Levin shoves in lots of scenes of people blasting guns and horse galloping.

Story - Palance is a Southern raider with sons George Maharis and Vince Edwards, going overboard with the killing and raping so Edwards drops out. Years later Palance and Maharis are still running riot and they cross with Edwards.

This was shot in Spain so there are English actors in it - Sylvia Syms doing a topless swim (she went nude a bit, was she ask or offered) as Edwards' wife.

Edwards seems bored - it's not hard to see why he didn't become a star, at least not based on this. Palance hams it up. Maharis is a blank presence. Neville Brandis is a sympathetic marshall.

Down beat - Syms is killed, Palance and Edwards kill each other, a lot of rape.

Feels kind of... stockly nihilistic. Written by Walter Brough who worked with Levin on The Treasure Seekers. 

Movie review - "The Fighting Guardsman" (1945) **1/2

 Willard Parker was a third tier leading man who Columbia had under contract for a while. this is a gift for an actor playing a Scarlet Pimpernel type - an aristocrat who robs nobles and gives to the poor This is the time of Louis XVI who appears. There's decent complications - Parker is in love with Anita Louise whose brother George Macready (excellent as always) is an aristocrat, Parker's men don't trust him because he's an aristocrat, ally Janis Carter (hugely fun) becomes a mistress of Louis.

Parker is dull and wooden. There's no difference between the characters. John Loder is a sympathetic Pom. He's also blank. Carter and the support are great; Louise is fine.

A strong story, solid Henry Levin direction. Just let down by its lead. 

Movie review - "That Man Bolt" (1973) **

 Fred Williamson as a sort of black James Bond, a courier who gets involved in international shenanigans. This is quite fun, in part because they don't make 'em like it anymore.

Two directors are credited - Henry Levin and David Lowell Rich - I assume one got sick/sacked. (Levin often pinch hit for other directors eg Charles Vidor - doesn't mean that happened here.) 

The film isn't very good but it's so dumb that it's endearing, with Williamson going to Hong Kong and beating people up and sleeping with women, and British character actors give it novelty. 

Movie review - "Sergreant Mike" (1944) **

 Should have been a slam dunk - army story about soldier Larry Parks assigned to train a dog, romacing a widow who has a cute kid. It's alright but there's not nearly enough dog stuff - we want more scenes of their relationship.. The scene with Parks and the kid goes on way too long. There's too much war stuff.

The copy I saw was murky too which didn't help and may have influenced me.  Henry Levin's second film as a director.

Movie review - "Genghis Khan" (1965) ***

 This doesn't have much of a reputation and some things are cringe inducing like James Mason in yellow face and Fu Macchu moustache and Robert Morley as the Emperor of China. But the script by Beverly Cross is literate and strong, and if the Chinese are improperly played by English actors their characters are clever.

The photography is divine, the production value spectacular. They tried to make a good movie. 

Omar Sharif suits Genghis Khan far better than John Wayne did all those years ago. Stephen Boyd is another mongol - Francois Dorleac is Khan's love interest! Telly Savalas stands out, as usual, as a warrior ally of Sharif.

Has very very little to do with reality. 

Movie review - "I Love a Mystery" (1945) ***

 The first of three films based on a popular radio series. This has the two stars of that, neither familiar, investigating a crime. It's an enjoyably lurid crime with George Macready worried his head will be lopped off.

It runs at an hour, the photography is splendid, Macready adds class as does Nina Foch.  Satisfying mystery, stylishly made. I enjoyed this.

Movie review - "The Wonders of Aladdin" (1961) **

So-so Eastern despite the presence of talented people like Donald O'Connor and Mario Bava doing second unit. Henry Levin can make good movies but his output is variable. This isn't one of his better movie.

There is colour (though my copy was murky), lots of dubbing.  Lacks energy. Story confusing. O'Connor tries and dances once or twice. There's some torture, dancing girls, dungeons, flying carpet. But never comes alive.

During filming there were riots where people died. 

Movie review - "Cry of the Werewolf" (1944) **

 Henry Levin's first film as director, or one of the first, is a knock off of Cat People about a Romani woman who can turn into a wolf at will.

Cast is interesting - Nina Foch, Stephen Crane (who married Lana Turner and fathered her daughter - he's not much of an actor),  Barton Maclane.

This is okay. It gets better in the last third when Osa Massen goes full evil. Crane is fairly dreadful. Moves fast. 

Movie review - "The Corpse Came COD" (1947) ***

 Comedy mystery based on a novel by a Hollywood columnist so it's set in the Hollywood world - a dead body turns up in the house of a movie star (Adele Jurgens) who calls in a journalist friend (George Brent) who tries to find out who did it. Joan Blondell is a rival reporter, the best of the cast - Brent is more of a lug though he's amiable. 

Henry Levin keeps it at a fast pace. I like this sort of movie, it was fun. 

Movie review - "Honeymoon Hotel" (1964) **

 The sort of movie that you want to just enjoy but it keeps stuffing up. Decent set up - Robert Morse gets dumped so best friend Robert Goulet takes him on his honeymoon. That's Forgettig Sarah Marshall. But the film runs out of ideas. What's at stake? Morse misses his fiance, Goulet tries to keep Morse apart.

Nancy Kwan seems ill at ease in this piece - it's great there's some colour blind casting (Goulet has a black secretary too) but she's not very good. 

The film is full of scenes were you go "why don't they have someone sing?" like when Goulet and Kwan walk around. It's meant to be in the Caribbean but all feels like the backlot. Couldn't they afford any second unit work? Despite this and the lack of black Caribbean characters the film still finds a way for cultural appropriateion with Morse turning up as a "native".

Keenan Wynn and Jill St John liven things up at the end but it's all so contrived. Elsa Lanchester is wasted.

Goulet and Morse might've become movie stars but their luck was rotten. This isn't good. 

Movie review - "The Gallant Blade" (1948) **1/2

 Tight Columbia swasbuckler with a neat idea - some French officers at the end of the 30 year war try to stop villainous Frenchy Victor Jory from trying to start up war again. George MacCready is a good generaal the hero is Larry Parks who feels very American. But its amicable and fun. Margureite Chapman has a meaty role as Jory's spy/mistress who falls for Parks - she's got something to play.

Some beautiful diction on display with Jory and Macready. Henry Levin keeps it fast. From a Dumas story. 

Movie review - "Where the Boys Are" (1960) **** (rewatching)

 This just works. Location photography, lovely cast, splendid camraderie - the four girls are friends, but they befriend other girls, find boys, the boys become mates.

Dolores Hart has perhaps her best role - spirited, smart, liberated, attracted to George Hamilton. Hamilton brings some second tier star power. Jim Hutton v affable, Paula Prentiss hugely likable, as is Connie Francis who isn't asked to do too much - she gets Frank Gorshin who is engaging, though I'm sure Francis wanted someone better looking. The sexual assault done on Yvette Mimieux is very well handled. The film shows aspects of its time but has aged far better than other movies from this era. 

Book review - "Flashman" (1969) by George MacDonald Fraser (re-reading)

 Re-read this. Totally works. Fraser had great control from the start. Full knowledge of his character and tone. Full of memorable set pieces - I think his journalism training really paid off. The duel sequence, the riots in Scotland, the initial days in India, the attack that gave rise to Bloody Lance, the fighting in the cell with the pit of snakes, the murder of Sekundar Burnes, the murder of McNaughten, the spectacular collapse of the British army retreating from Kabul., the final battle.

Would it be possible to do this at anything approaching a reasonable budget? Well, the London scenes could be done indoors. You could condense India. There are some Afghans scenes that don't have to be huge budget - stuff in prison cells, the final fort battle. The murder of McNaughten could be done off screen. The retreat itself though that would be hard. 

Book review - "The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey from Hollywood to Holy Vows" by Dolores Hart

 Great book. Fascinating. More than half is nun stuff. I got lost in some Catholicism but there's plenty of human conflict in those abbeys. 

She seems like a nice person. Not without desire - she was up for kissing Stephen Boyd (they later clashed over his scientology). Henry Levin's wife was jealous of her and wrote a letter in the abbey calling her selfish. She had boyfriends. Said she wanted to kill Debbie Reynolds when she found out Reynolds had been cast in the film.

Full of interesting sketches - George Peppard looked down his nose at her during Pleasure of His Company,  Elvis was shy and awkward, Anna Magnani was terrifying but then nice, Where the Boys Are was a dream, Lois Nettleon became a friend as did Karl Malden and Patricia Neal, she helped Neal get back in the saddle after Roald Dahl left her, Paula Prentiss was a mate, Michael Curtiz was a bully on King Creole.

Seems like a nice person. Not in a two dimensional way. Her parents sound like pieces of work. 

Movie review - "Wild is the Wind" (1957) **

 Hal Wallis' follow up for Anna Magnani after The Rose Tattoo. There's lots of emoting and yelling. tThe plot has Magnani marry Anthony Quinn but be hot for his surrogate son Tony Franciosa - they have decent chemistry.

It's just not a very interesting movie. Needed a murder or something. There's some horse capture scenes. Only... who cares? Who cares if she stays with Quinn or goes off with the younger guy? That was my main problem.

Dolores Hart is enjoyable mostly by not over acting. I wish her part had been bigger. 

Movie review - "A Co-respondent's Course" (1931) **

 Short film (40 mins) about shenanigans involving people going to Portsea and men thinking their women are cheating. Not funny or even that logical but nice shots of Portsea and photograph over all. From FW Thring.

Movie review - "The Haunted Barn" (1931) **

 Silly, dumb but endearing short feature from FW Thring in the vein of Seven Keys to Baldpate about various people in a haunted barn - eloping lovers, woman with a gun, swagmen, rich dude, mystery body. Not good but it tries. It was banned for kids for a brief moment.

Movie review - "Lonelyhearts" (1958) *1/2

 Terrible. Dore Schary at his worst. I was going to give it two stars due to the professionalism of Myrna Loy, Robert Ryan, Dolores Hart and Maureen Stapleton but it's just too annoying.

Monty Clift's performance is full of ticks and eyes. He seems wasted. If Schary had leaned into that this might have worked.

Smug views. Everything heavy. Subplots about Ryan tormenting Loy because she once had an affair - she could've been cut out of the film. Lots of talking about reading letters. Terrible journalist characters crapping on. So much reportage. Only one story dramatised - Stapleton's husband is impotent in the war, she's horny, Clift roots her, doesn't want to to do it again, he pulls a gun... the one exciting bit. But doesn't kill Clift. Clift should have died.

Hart pines. Her dad tells her to stop looking after him and go and get married to Clift. You know like a real option. Even after Clift's lied about his dad being in prison (for shooting his cheating wife - this film is consistently misogynistic). And Clift has shagged Stapleton.

Hart tries. Ryan has a nothing character. 

I hated this film. 

Book review - 'The Creative Producer" by David Lewis (1993)

 Lewis is best known as the boyfriend of James Whale. He also produced a number of films. Has some excellent credits at Warner Bros and MGM in particular. He struggled later in the 1950s - films like Raintree County and what not.

His memoirs are fascinating - a different insight from the Golden Age. Like everyone his memoirs are self serving - takes credit for things like coming up with the insanity angle for Kings Row rather than incest with Casey Robinson. But we hear different takes on films like Kings Row but also Each Dawn I Die, Four's a Crowd, Camille.

Interesting views of people like Irving Thalberg, Hal Wallis, Jack Warner, Dore Schary, Sam Wood, etc.

Movie review - "Madison Avenue" (1961) **

 A real oddity, in a way. A sort of early 1950s executive melodrama that came out years too late with stars on the silde - Dana Andrews, Eleanor Parker, Jeanne Crain. It's in CinemaScope but it in black and white.

It's very dull. Lots and lots of chat, too much given to Dana Andrews who needs people to bounce off. Not dramatised in anyway. Feels like a bunch of hasbeens trying to recapture glory. I think even in 1953 this would have been a programmer - movies like Executive Suite had lots of stars and colours.

Could this have worked at all? Maybe with sex from people that the audience wanted to see sex with. 

So dull. So random. 

HandMade Films Best to Worst

(of the ones I have seen - so not the Missionary, Song of Freedom, Taboo, Venom, The Burning) 

Classics 

Life of Brian (1979)

The Time Bandits (1981)

The Long Good Friday (1980)

Withnail and I (1987)

Solid Comedies 

A Private Function (1984) 

Water (1985) 

Nuns on the Run (1990)

Bullshot (1983) 

Solid Dramas 

The Lonely  Passion of Judith Hearne (1989)

Mona Lisa (1986) 

Five Corners (1987) 

Brave tries 

The Raggedy Rawney (1988)

How to Succeed in Advertising (1989)

Track 29 (1989)

Scrubbers (1982) 

Powwow Highway (1989) 

Comedy misfires

Privates on Parade (1982)

Drama misfires

Bellman and True (1987) 

 Fiascos

 Shanghai Surprise (1986)

Checking Out (1989) 

Cold Dog Soup (1990) 

Movie review - "Monty Python's Life of Brian" (1979) *****

 Magnificent movie. It looks incredible - that production design, those costumes. It's hilarious. There's a devastating point - the satire on people who blindly fellow religion. No wonder people got upset- it's targeted at them. But they can't say that so they say it's blashemous. The ending is incredibly moving and powerful.

Movie review - "The Long Good Friday" (1980) *****

 Great, tough British gangster film which is based on solid concept - a gangster going legit finds himself threatened by the IRA. Its ace in the hole is Bob Hoskins - working class, tough, ,warm, funny, sympathetic. 

He's got solid support from Helen Mirren (an uptown girl slumming it), Bryan Marshall, Eddie Constantine, a young Pierce Brosnan, and others. 

One of Hoskins' gangsters is gay - there were a few of these in British cinema of the time eg Villain. 

Terrific music. Just really well done. 

Movie review - "Time Bandits" (1981) *****

 I didn't like this much as a child because I wanted it to be a Monty Python film when it's an adventure movie. Watching it years later it's just a wonderful piece of work, Terry Gilliam at his peak, beautifully complemented by Michael Palin. The lead kid is fine, the little people are terrific, the cameos splendid - Shelley Duvall is as good as Palin and Cleese - Sean Connery gives it heart. The second half felt more Gilliam than Palin - he's in his element. The imagination is lovely - the boat on the top of the giant's head, the swinging rope in the dark. Dave Warner a lot of fun, so too Ralph Richardson.

It's a terrific film. Has aged incredibly well.

Movie review - "Castaway" (1986) **1/2

 Intriguing - Oliver Reed puts ad in paper for woman to live on island with him for a year. They have sex before even going out there and the relationship is explored. 

It's patchy, erratic, always watchable. Amanda Donahue isn't as naked on screen as often as I'd been led to believe. She's excellent. Great to see Reed in a decent role for a change. 

The island is located near Australia and there are some Aussie characters in it. 

Movie review - "Nuns on the Run" (1990) ***

 The last film, I think, from HandMade Films, at least its George Harrison-Denis O'Brien iteration, saw the company go out on a hit - and it was the type of movie the company probably should have made through the late 80s instead of all those quirky American pieces: a solid comedy with a former Monty Python. Eric Idle is the guy here, though the prime creative mover was Jonathan Lynn who wrote and directed it. 

Idle teams well with Robbie Coltrane and the jokes are obvious but funny. There's various plot machinations, a really sweet romance for Idle, Janet Suzman impresses as mother superior (but feels as though she needs a big scene or something the way Maggie Smith got in Sister Act  - that film felt as though it learned from this one). The pacing is occasionally off and some scenes feel re-shot. But it wants to entertain, the music is great, it's unpretentious. 

Movie review - "Cold Dog Soup" (1990) *

 One of the films that killed HandMade it's a little like After Hours though based on a novel published 1985. Frank Whaley wants to sleep with Christine Hamos so agrees to bury her mother's dog and winds up having a series of adventures mostly involving wacky cab driver Randy Quaid. A culty type movie it doesn't quite click - the adventures don't make sense, Whaley is fine, Hamos is mysterious and enigmatic and comes along for the ride in the second half but doesn't bring much to the party, Quaid is large as you expect him to be.

This was developed for Sam Kinison who would've been better.

There's a voodoo ceremony at the end which splashes the cash. Why did they make this? Why so much quirk? 

Nice to see some old vets like Sheree North, Seymour Cassell and Nancy Kwan turn up. But this film was annoying.  

Movie review - "Lisa" (1962) ** aka "The Inspector"

 A story of promise - a Dutch police officer helps a Jewish woman into Palestine, despite thinking she could be guilty of murder of a Nazi. Very strong support cast - Donald Pleasance, Leo McKern, Marius Goring - and B list stars: Stephen Boyd and Dolores Hart. They are pretty and try but aren't proper stars of say a Gregory Peck and Natalie Wood.

Tired. Hopping off and on barges. No stakes. Like the Nazi is killed. He deserved to die. Accidental edath. Who cares if she gets to Palestine or if they get caught or the couple can't make it?

The film doesn't work. 

Hart has some nice moments. But I don't thinkshe was a real star. Boyd wasn't. 

Movie review - "The Raggedy Rawney" (1988) **1/2

 Handmade Films enjoyed success with two Bob Hoskins vehicles, The Long Good Friday and Mona Lisa so when he came to them seeking finance for his directorial debut they ponied up the cash. It's not exactly high concept - in an unnamed European country a soldier (Dexter Fletcher) deserts, is traumatised by war, puts on a dress and is a mute who accompanies some Romani.

The cast includes Hoskins and many of his mates like Zoe Wanamaker, Ian McNiece, and Jim Carter. Ian Drury is also in it.  Fletcher looks like Mick Jagger. Shags a nubile blonde. The Romani fight off soldiers.

The film is a brave try. I like the ambition. Some moving moments. Open ending. Wasn't for me but no disgrace. 

TV review - "Alfred Hitchcock Presents - Silent Witness" (1957) **1/2

 Best seen for Dolores Hart's performance as a sexually aggressive student sleeping with married lecturer Don Taylor (Pat Hitchcock is his wife). He strangles her, a baby watches, the baby is kind of like the Tell Tale Heart. But really they can't think of a third act. Maybe the cops shoud've suspected and used it to trap him. 

Movie review - "Francis of Assisi" (1961) **

 The Francis story has a solid arc - playboy turned into Friar - but this is dull. Initial scenes feel like toy town medieval land. The transformation to true believer isn't effectively dramatised, just a lot of staring.

These films are hard to do. You need to put in action and passion and have relationships full of conflict. I didn't mind making Sister Clare in love with Francis but they pull their punches. The friendship between Francis and the warrior has potential again but is poorly done. Francis' dad isn't used as an antagonist enough. The budget was decent but not spectacle level.

Bradford Dillman tries but isn't a star - neither is Dolores Hart or Stuart Whitman. Hart was very effective, beautiful, cutting her hair off. THe film might've been better being about her and her sisters.

The film flopped as did Fox's other Biblical epic The Story of Ruth. 

Movie review - "Room with a View" (1985) *****

 Merchant-Ivory had been plugging away since the 1960s before everything clicked for them with this movie. It simply works from the opening of Dame Kiri singing Puccini - glorious song always loved it - then cutting to the new discovery beauty of Helena Bonham Carter and the exquisite comic timing of Maggie Smith, followed up by the dash of Julian Sands and the genius of Denholm Elliot. Rupert Everett auditioned for Sands' role and while Sands isn't amazing it was the right choice - I think Everett would've sent it up slightly.

Carter and Sands weren't the best actors then but they have the perfect look. Rupert Friend also stole the show as Freddy. Daniel Day Lewis is next level with his performance.

The oldies give it heart though - Maggie Smith's uptight nature, lying in bed alone at the end, Denholm Elliot's decency and awkwardness. Full of warmth like Sands giving his dad a kiss.

Very homoerotic gaze with its nude men running around and men wrestling and subtext about the importance of being rogered by young bucks in Italy.

The whole movie does work.  

 

Movie review - "Another Country" (1984) ****

 Well made British film has a great subject - Guy Burgess at school - and does it well. The other main character is his commie mate played by Colin Firth though he actually doesn't get much screen time - he starts as a commie ends as a commie (Ken Branah played this role on stage). The story is about the politicisation of Burgess. Some critics from the time whined that it didn't show his politicisation - but it shows very clearly his disenchantment with the estabishment, at first he disdains it cheerfully then comes to loathe it when he's booted from making head prefect. 

Cary Elwes is Bennett's love object, Bennett is played excellently by Rupert Everett in a star making portrayal. The make up at the beginning and end is a litte off putting - and would an American journalist be allowed to interview a spy?

But a very good movie. 

Movie review - "Track 29" (1988) **1/2

 Nic Roeg films are always worth watching and this is a case in point. I don't feel it quite works - the American setting perhaps, maybe he would've been more at home in Britain, or writer Dennis Potter. Theresa Russell is okay as the woman visited by son Gary Oldman, who goes all out - who may be a hallucination. There's incest and hammy antics from Oldman and the movie is about Russell's PTSD from rape.

The film doesn't die wondering that's for sure. Chris Lloyd is Russell's wife, Sarah Bernhardt is his lover.

Gosh, Handmade backed some odd ones in the late 80s.

Movie review - "The Kissing Booth" (2018) ***

 Much mocked but done with great energy and life and it has an X factor of Joey King and especially Jacob Elordi.

It was shot in South Africa and does feel like it.  A decent movie that expertly ticks its boxes even if Jacob plays a walking red flag.

Movie review - "Dance with a Stranger" (1985) ***1/2

 A model for how to make a sensibly budgeted British film: pre existing IP, really good theatre writer doing the script, TV director behind the camera, two new stars (Miranda Richardson, Rupert Everett) and an established name (Ian Holm), some sex and violence.

Done with taste and skill and Richardson is spectacular. Holm also excellent. Everett is fine. I preferred the Diana Dors version of this story - this is a little too restrained - but it's well done. 

Movie review - "The Mission" (1986) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

 Smart. Literate. Gorgeous to look at. Top cast. Magnificent locations. Divine score. 

Doesn't quite work. Jeremy Irons and Robert de Niro look too much alike. The original idea, for the priest to be an older actor, should have been persisted with. Irons is fine by the way. But he doesn't feel like a real person. Just a good priest.

Ray McNally feels real. So too does Robert de Niro. Liam Neeson. The other slave guy.

The depiction of the locals is unforgiveable. They are childlike simpletons. 

It's a shame because the film has such a great driver - slaver tries to redeem himself, returns to violence, defends native people against colonisers. That's Avatar. But in Avatar the local culture had a voice. It was personified.

If there had been a proper Indian character who had a relationship with the men - a firebrand and a peacelover, both women, say - this would have really resonated. The movie needed some women in it (there's one briefly, she's in love with de Niro's brother Aidan Quinn, but that's it). Also they could have ended the film on some hope. Having de Niro and Irons die felt really men. Maybe it would've been okay if some dimentional Indian character survived.

So much great stuff but they didn't nail the story. 

Movie review - "Five Corners" (1987) ***

 The first American movie from HandMade Films, in hindsight a mistake, though the company kept producing British pictures, and all its American films were something different.

This launched a bunch of names - John Patrick Shanley, John Tururro, Tim Robbins - and was part of the re-awakening of Jodie Foster. 

I remember reading the script ages ago - it was published - and being intrigued by its characters, the combination of nostalgia and violence, the unsettling story of a man out of prison seeking revenge for someone he's obsessed with (Foster), the killing of the penguins. Something Wild is maybe a little close to it though that had more sex.

That script was more vivid to read than the final film was to watch, although the film is faithful. Maybe it needed a better director. Mind you I doubt any other director would have made it. 

The ending felt satisfying. This was odd. It worked.