Book review - "Death of a President" by William Manchester

 Got into this reading a Vanity Fair account of its writing. I'd actually never heard of it but it's renowned as a classic of reporting, made with Kennedy involvement only they backed off.

Exhaustive, feels accurate. Powerful. So believable. I began to get angry reading it at the conspiracy theorists. Maybe that was just trauma dealing. Of course it was. The truth too uncomfortable but we see it so clearly now. Hostile press. Mad city. Anti-commie rhetoric. Incel with a gun. Trained by marines. Wants to kill someone. Hates his wife. Looking for a place in a world. Wife leaves him for another woman (I totally didn't know this.)

Very thotough.

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 - "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 - "The Holcroft Covenant" (1985) *

 Such a bad movie. Confusing. Slow. Devoid of action. Dull. No decent action scenes.

Michael Caine replaced James Caan. Caine is bad. Everyone is bad. Incomptent. Finale is a press conference. No sex, no intrigue, no suspense.

This was an abomination. 

Play review - "I Am My Own Wife: A Play" by Doug Wright

 A look at a German transgender activist and spy. One person plays a lot of roles. Some history. The author is a character. Interesting, The right performer I can see it going down a treat.

Movie review - "The Seventh Dawn" (1964) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

 Big budget Malayan Emergency film didn't have to have a big budget. It actually felt like it could be a TV play - suspenseful account of Erusian woman (Capucine) framed by commie (Testuro Tamba) so she'll be shot by Brits, so British woman (Susannah York) hands herself to commie so American (William Holden) who loves Eurasian woman goes to rescue British woman.

You could play that out simply. There's two big battles - at the camp and later on - which aren't needed as are the big protests. Acting is fine. York is a bit of a middle aged man fantasy - horny, nubile, brave, who just wants to shag Holden. Capucine carries history and gives one of her best performances. Holden is fine in these self loathing roles. The guy who plays York's dad is undercast, I got him mixed up with a military guy. A british soldier should've loved York.

As a drama this isn't bad. Hurt by French Capucine as Eurasian and a Japanese as a Chinese communist and an American as a planter in Malaya. Some memorable moments. Malays are mostly background. 

Ben Hecht worked on script.  But it's a depressing story. Malays have their village burned down. Capucine is excuted. Tamba is killed. Holden gives up his plantations and goes off travelling and doesn't even root York. York is left alone. Just depressing.

Probably better dramatically if York had died. The true Malays - Capucine , Tamba - die.

Movie review - "Fly Me to the Moon" (2024) ***

 Sweet romantic comedy with a strong idea - background to the Moon landing - and theme - about selling, and the truth - is an enjoyable watch. It didn't have to close $100 million, this should've been a $40 million film. Maybe too much plot in the last act.

Movie review - "House of Secrets" (1956) **

 

A thriller from Rank, aiming at the international market and trying to turn Michael Craig into a big star.

Doesn't work, despite some decent action, great colour and locations and not bad cast.

Why doesn't it work?

- undercover story (a lookalike) but doesn't really exploit it - no fun of contrast.

- the person he looks a like is killed off, he should've still be alive and cause trouble

- didn't lean in to the concept - the fun/danger of being a crim

- he's not in enough danger... always reporting back to Geoffrey Keen

- no ticking clock and rising stakes. Who cares about currency. Just make it a bomb.

Just badly plotted.

Movie review - "You Know What Sailors Are Like" (1954) **

 Rank really liked Donald Sinden. Here is is as a young naval officer caught up in an Arab country which think the Brits have a weapon when they don't. Appparently the original novel on which this is based had more point. Maybe.

Rank invested in colour and elaborate sets, the film pushes Sinden as a hunk (he's often without his shirt), there are Arab harem women like a 1950s Universal movie, I'm sure the lechers went through then, yet still in a studio that had Kay Kendall and Diana Dors under contract the dull Sarah Lawson is the lead. When Lawson goes undercover as a harem girl at the end it should be funny - imagine the Carry On girls doing it - but it's not.

The movie starts of with three sailors and it should have had three sailors all the way through - it mostly has Sinden, although Bill Kerr joing him an hour in and the action perks up. It's fun to see him as an Aussie.

Kenneth More wanted to play the lead but it was after Genevieve had been shot and before it was released. That was a mistake. 

This movie seemed to go on forever despite gorgeous colour, sets and girls, there was just something plodding about it. Director Ken Annakin later admitted farce wasn't his natural genre and he was right.

Movie review - "The Young Lovers" (1954) ***1/2

 A surprise. This flopped and it doesn't have the stars (David Knight and Odile Versois) to put it over but it's beautifully made, simple, empathetic. Maybe too much Swan Lake. Anthony Asquith did a beautiful job and it's lovely shot. If only Dirk Bogarde and Mai Zetterling had one it.

Movie review - "High Treason" (1951) **

 Semi sequel to Seven Days at Noon isn't as good. No ticking clock, no compelling lead just a smug copper and a dull stressed agent, no humour, no interesting characters.

Red scare movies are fine if there are scares but this doesn't have any.

Stylishly shot and professionally put together. Just annoying, somehow. The posh commie villains lack the pizzaz of Hitchcock's foreign agents.

Movie review - "Goldeneye" (1995) **** (re-watching)

 Splendid theme song and romancing tune. Lousy action score. Pierce is very handsome and plays it well - he fits right in. Strong script. Memorable pieces. Why no Felix Leiter?

Movie review - "Sergeant Deadhead" (1965) ** (rewatching)

 Some bright moments but the film never seems to make up its mind what the story is. There's a bumbling soldier who gets shot into space - fine - but then he has a big head and so they get in a look alike, which is a whole new movie, then the lookalike tries to avoid having sex with Deadhead's fiance. Then the lookalike disappear and they go to meet the president.

It's unsatifactory. Some songs are alright. The players try. Frankie Avalon gives his all. Deborah Walley is sweet. Why is John Ashley in this? Harvey Lembck. Donna Loren gets some lines. Bobbi Shaw is wasted. Buster Keaton gets  a joke. Eve Arden gets a song.

Movie review - "Out of Sight" (1966) *

 There's no reason why a mash up of Beach Party movies and spy films couldn't have worked. AIP could've pulled it off - they mixed it with haunted house films and sci fi. This is just a bad movie. Jonathan Daly is hard work as a spy's butler who becomes a spy.  He' s a drag. Maybe he was famous at the time. But Frankie Avalon in this role would've been so much better.

There's some terrific music - versions of "Baby Please Don't Go" and "It's Not Unusual". I did really like the three female assassins

But on the whole this is a dull movie.

Movie review - "The Ipcress File" (1965) ****

 Harry Saltzmann's anti-Bond is still about a sexy agent who beds women, has some sophistication (he's a cook), outsmarts the bad guys and is cocky to his superiors - but he wears glasses, is unapologetically working class, and there's nice touches about filling out forms and bureaucracy.

It's very stylishly directed by Sidney J Furie, clearly loving having more of a budget. The music score is very James Bond-y as are Ken Adams' sets.

The plot was a little confusing but basically it's whether Nigel Green is the baddie or Guy Doleman is the baddy. You know that Gordon Jackson is going to be killed.

Some Aussies in the cast like Guy Doleman and Ric Hutton.

Book review - "Charlie Chaplin vs. America" by Scott Eyman

 Eyman's done a few books about famous right wingers so here's one about a left winger. It doesn't take on all of Chaplin's life, it focuses bascially on the hatred America had for him - elements of it. It stars at Chaplin's peak in the 1930s then goes into his battles for The Great Dictator, World War Two and the way the USA turned on him - or at least his critics grew in power. It was vicious and ferocious, the big fat slab of facism within American politics (we have it too) going berserk. It wasn't a tragedy as Chaplin held on to his money and had a happy last marriage but it was pretty brutal. A moving book.

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

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

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

Movie review - "Hide and Seek" (1964) ** (warning spoilers)

 Cold War thriller with Ian Carmichael in a Kenneth More style role - more accurately, Cary Grant, who Carmichael wanted to emulate. In his memoirs Carmichael says the original scrit was great but was rewritten. Maybe. I think he's miscast. I can see why he got the role - not bad looking, comic, etc... Kenneth More would've been more at home or Dirk Bogarde.

Janet Munro is lovely as the girl, a little mysterious, though she's too young for him. Actually it's not so much that (14 years difference) as the fact he's not hot enough for her. Incidentally erhe's a scene where she changes out of her wet clothes and flashes her bare back - racy!

But the basic problem of the film is it's not clear what Carmichael is doing... he's a scientist doing chess stuff, looking for a colleague, I think. But the whole thing is a trap from Curt Jurgens so it's a trick, which isn't that satisfactory.

Curt Jurgens adds some star power at the end and I liked Hugh Griffiths as a fisherman and scenes out in the countryside, which had the 39 Steps vibe this could have led into more.

Movie review - "Counterspy Meets Scotland Yard" (1950) **

 Decent B based on a radio series about counter espionage. The title Counterspy guy is played by middle aged Howard St John with Ron Randell as the Scotland Yard agent to do the legwork including putting on a disguise.

Quite dense with dialogue, betraying the radio origins, but smart. The baddies are smart - it's Cold War stuff - the acting sincenre, the playing fast. This was decent. Randell is lively.

Movie review - "Avalanche Express" (1979)**

 Remembered if at all for being the film which killed off both Mark Robson and Robert Shaw. It's an old school spies on a train film, with an all star cast for TV sales. So there's Lee Marvin and Linda Evans and Mike Connors and Joe Namath.

Gene Corman and Monte Helman were called in to finish the movie and wound up doing more than they probably had to.  The opening scene where Shaw and Max Schell are speaking in dubbed Russian while their lips are clearly moving in English. That was a post production decision. Why make that decision? Ah, I wasn't there... maybe they had reason to. But why get rid of Shaw's voice for the whole film?

Why have Max Schell in such a bad disguise? Why have so many characters in the film? It'd be better if Marvin was up against It. He doesn't do that much. They should've killed off more people - Linda Evans (who does barely nothing, just sitting and chatting), Mike Connors, Joe Namath. They throw in Horsct Bucholz for good measure. Why not have one of our leads as traitors? Or two?

They needed to have this take place over a shorter period of time and have better reasons for not getting off the train. 

There is plenty of action. But it's both complicated and dumb. 

I really wanted to enjoy this - spies on a train. Terrific. But it's too loud, too many stars, too dubbed, and too silly.