Movie review - "Midsommar" (2019) **** (re-watching)

 Very well made. Smart. Solid world building. Florence Pugh anchors a passive role with her beauty and charisma. Might've exploited the deaths more for scares. Hard to pick at thhough.

Phil Yordan top ten

Yes, I am aware when it comes to Yordan it's often unclear who did what but anyway... 

 1) The Big Combo (1955)

2) Men in War (1957) 

3) When Strangers Marry (1944) 

4)  El Cid (1961)

5) Johnny Guitar (1954)

6) The Naked Jungle (1954)

7) The Chase (1946)

8) The Harder They Fall (1956)

9) Joe Macbeth (1955) 

10) Reign of Terror (1949) 

These were all good scripts. Yordan had a strong track record. 

Play review - "Anna Lucasta" by Philip Yordan

 Yordan's hit stage play isn't that much but was a sensation in its day. He wrote it about a Polish American family it was changed to be about a black one - this "reads black", changes were presumably made by the director and cast though I'm not sure what.

Plot fairly simple - dodgy family discovers a cashed up hayseed is coming to town so they decide to marry him too to the estranged trashy Anna, a prodigal daughter hanging out in a bar and flirting with sailors.

I've seen two film versions of the play before reading this - both faihtful. You could see it working with strong actors, and a sexually charged Anna especially the scenes with her and the hayseed. (Sidney Poitier played that part on the road he would've been perfect.)

Key events happen off stage like the death of Anna's dad (who doesn't have a big part) and Anna reuniting with the hayseed. Odd. Could be adapted less faithfully. Could be musicalised.

A curio. Plot inspired by Anna Christie.

Movie review - "The Thin Red Line" (1964) **

 Good on Yordan for trying to make an elevated war picture but despite the source material this feels like an episode of Combat with a lot of gun play and two actors snarling. Jack Warden is fine as the sergeant, Keir Dullea is bland as the innocent, but no one is up to it, not really. Director Andrew Marton found the limit of his ability.

It's a hard book to adapt to be fair. There's the odd good bit like the wounded soldier crying out. But I think this needed to be made a few years later to go down the violent gorry route it clearly wants to. 

There's a flashback of Dullea and his wife in lingere so Yordan could give his wife a part!

Shot in Spain. 

Book review - "The Book of Sheen" by Charlie Sheen (2025)

 Starts off interestingly - the son of Martin Sheen, growing up in Malibu, hanging out with the Penns (Chris more than Sean), being on set in Philippines for Apocalypse Now, discovering paid sex on the streets of Santa Monica (!), a rapid rise to acting work - a part in Grizzly 2 (which meant he had to turn down the lead in Karate Kid), a strong experience on Red Dawn and Ferris Bueller then the casting in Platoon. After that the book wobbles with Sheen whining incessantly about his work on Wall Street then it goes into free fall with tales of drugs, and women, and rants. Sheen comes across as a completely unpleasant person - a narcissist like so many junkies who brags about all the drugs they took and interventions they've had and wagons they've fallen of, who dribbles away about his suffering.  He clearly lives in a world with too many jesters and has little respect for his craft of acting. He's constantly disparaging the films he appears in - ego trips, badly written, etc - though he has some nice words for the writers and co stars of Spin City and Two and a Half Men. He owns some of his mistakes but only some and basically just dribbles.

Despite the people he's worked with some character sketches come through - Johnny Depp trying to seduce him into smoking on Platoon, Oliver Stone's tension trying to make the movies, Chris Penn, his parents. But so many people are vaguely drawn incuding his own brother. The book also assumes the reader knows about many of the incidents - maybe that's true for a typical reader but some context wouldn't go astray. Also the spelling of "dood" and "fukken" gets wearying. Like Sheen and this book.

Movie review - "Men in War" (1957) ***1/2

 Excellent, tight little lost patrol movie set in the Korean War - Robert Ryan leads what's left of his men, crossing with Aldo Ray and a shell shocked colonel (Robert Keith). Anthony Mann is on tip top form. Stripped back story which nonetheless has some decent character stuff.

The left wing leanings of producer Sidney Harmon and Ryan are on show, I believe, in things such as the dehumanisation of war (soldiers freak out, run away and step on mines) and the presence of a black soldier (James Edwards). 

Tight, solid, stripped back, etc etc. 

Movie review - "Anna Lucasta" (1958) **1/2

 Better than the 1949 version - more interesting with black actors and the overall quality of performance is stronger. Eartha Kitt has charisma and Sammy Davis Jnr is excellent as is Rex Ingram. It still isn't much of a play.

There's a little dancing and singing and you wish it had been a proper musical - less dialogue, characters expressing themselves through song. Still stagey, not that well directed.  

Movie review - "Royal Hunt of the Sun" (1969) **

 Chat, chat, chat. Peter Schaffer's stage play about Spaniards and Incas as a hit - a literate look at colonialism with some impressive staging. I can see the thought process - "well take this and add scenery and it'll be a literate blockbuster".

Maybe. Some people will like it. but it's a lot of talk. Christopher Plummer is the Inca king in make up. Robert Shaw has grey in his hair. 

Some effective moments - a battle sequence in slo mo with flameno, the death of Plummer.

Too much chat especially about God. There's a third act lecture from a priest, in common with many Phil Yordan scripts. 

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.