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. 

Play review - "Buyer and Seller" by Jonathan Tollins (2013)

 Really funny bright one man show which takes a fun concept - Streisand's shopping centre under her house - and runs with it. One actor plays different roles. Lots of show biz in jokes and we meet James Brolin as well as Babs. There's Arthur Laurents jokes and Elliot Gould mentions. That sort. Campy but there are people like this. Fun digs at screenwriters.

Movie review - "Rollercoaster" (1977) ***

 James Goldstone tried really hard to make a good movie but I think he was limited by his talent and also the restrictions of Universal - it has particularly ugly 70s art direction and costume design (those checked pants).

At heart this feels like an episode of Columbo with some spectacle (rollercoaster scenes, crowds at themed parks) - we know who did it straight away the film becomes about catching the killer. There's cat and mouse phone calls between hero George Segal and bomber Timothy Bottoms.

I liked Bottoms and Segal, though I wished Elliot Gould had been in either role. There's a lot of craggy faced actors like Henry Fonda, Harry Guardino, and Richard Widmark, and newer faces like Steve Guttenberg, Helen Hunt, and Craig Wasson. There's a fun cameo from a non famous band, decent extras. a solid rollercoaster explosion at the top, so much smoking (like, everyone's smoking, there's a plot about Segal trying to give up smoking - smokes killed one of the writers IRL), bits of business for Segal to play that was presumably actor bait (girlfriend Susan Strasberg, divorced from wife, trying to give up smoking, snappy attitude, scenes with Fonda and Widmark), lots of scenes of phone calls (dilligent plotting but I felt half an hour could've been cut out just with scene trims).

I wish the police had tried other ways of tracking Bottoms (eg interviewing people who saw him when he pretended to be giving room service... not hard to do, would've taken time, provided a sketch to give Segal).

But this was a pretty good movie. The acting was solid, it was smart, there was suspense (I expected the bomb crew to be blown away), the villain isn't dumb.

Book review - "My Name is Barbra" by Barbra Streisand

 I'm not a big Streisand head but have no particularly strong feelings about her. This book is very good though. Well written, enjoyable. Feels "her". Strong willed, eccentric, passionate. She's copped a lot of bad press over the years but from men trying to punish her. Arthur Laurents and Garson Kanin struggled to direct her with their "set and forget" methods. She had better luck with people like Jerome Robbins, William Wyler, and Peter Bogdanovich, people who challenged her. Did badly with weaker directors like Gene Kelly, Frank Pierson.

She writes affectionately of Elliot Gould which I liked - they had issues (he was partial to marijuana, jealousy and had a gambling habit) but was basically supportive. Also she has a lot of time for most of her exes: Ryan O'Neal, Geoge Lazenby (! - it was just a flirtation during On a Clear Day You Can See Forever), Kris Kristofferson, Warren Beatty (who she's not sure if she slept with), Pierre Trudeau, Omar Sharif, Anthony Newley (I didn't know that). Isn't nice about Sydney Chaplin who she had an affair with then called off and he behaved badly (Walter Matthau was a mate of his, hence his bad attitude on Hello Dolly). Likes most of her co stars even if she didn't fall in love with them (she was a method actress that way) - eg James Caan. She adored Brando and they had a friendship but not an affair (I don't think).

Full of "gee I wish you'd done that" moments-  she should've turned director on A Star is Born, should've made Merry Widow with Ingmar Bergman

She's ambivalent about Sue Menges (says Menges begged her to be in All Night Long), Jon Peters.

Particularly fascinating accounts of her musicals and movies especially The Way We Were (admits to not remembering much about For Pete's Sake). Also deep dives her albums and TV specials.

Lots of good juice like Arthur Laurents sending her a mean letter after her first album - but she also liked him because of The Way We Were; Mandy Patinkin demanding to have an affair; Complex descriptions of Ray Stark, Sydney Pollack

There's a bit too much about clothes and blocking of scenes. And the last few chapters are really grim - the Clintons, politicis, philanthropy, her 21st century career. But def read the first bit.

Book review - "Mainly on Directing: Gypsy, West Side Story and Other Musicals" by Arthur Laurents

 Could have done with an edit especially on the bits about Gypsy - some of it is interesting but it just goes on and on, and it was a revival. But the interesting stuff is really interesting and there are entertaining recaps too of I Can Do It For You Wholesale, West Side Story, Anyone Can Whistle, Nick and Nora, La Cage. Everyone is keen to sack people all the time in theatre. My favourite story is sacking Robert Stack from La Cage - that's very funny.

Merrick wanted to replace Elliot Gould on Wholesale with Michael Callan.

Nat Cohen at EMI Films in 1973

 In May 1973 Cohen announced a slate of seven films worth £5 million:

• Here There Be Dragons starring Joseph Bottoms - which became The Dove
• Wet Stuff with Elliot Gould and Donald Sutherland
• Swallows and Amazons
• Murder on the Orient Express
• Alfie Darling
• Hot Property with Cliff Richard - this became Take Me High
• The Killer Elite produced by Arthur Lewis

What about this slate? Well it had a massive hit in Orient Express. I would've invested in The Dove - not the Gould/Sutherland film.

Swallows and Amazons - yes, a kids film. Alfie sequel - it sucked, I would've made it in 1970... they waited too long. Cliff Richard musical - sure worth a shot. Killer Elite, yes.

This slate was a little iffy but it had Orient Express.

Movie review - "You People" (2023) ***1/2

 Really smart, funny rom com about a white Jew (Jonah Hill) who falls in love with a black woman (Lauren London). Jonah Hill is an engaging lead - everyone is good actually though the X factor comes from Eddie Murphy as his father in law, with Sam Jay, who is sensational, coming a close second as Hill's podcasting mate. 

This has received some snippy reviews - I don't get it. Maybe it is a little too long, and the wedding planner riff is OTT. David Duchovny maybe miscast (his performance is fine, just felt miscast.)

I thought it was hilarious, and some of it was brilliant. Elliot Gould does a lot of extra-ing. Bryan Greenberg is Hill's mate but has no lines, is that right?

Thoughts on Michael Callan (1935-2022)

 I was thinking of doing a piece on Callan but I'm not sure there's one in me at the moment. Still, I felt I should jot down a few thoughts.

An interesting quasi-star, was Callan. He had looks and the backing of a Hollywood studio but the studio system was in decline. 

He was born "Martin Calinoff" in Philadelphia in 1935 - dad ran restaurants - and was something of a showbiz baby, taking singing and dancing lessons at an early age, and appearing on local radio shows. He was a very good dancer, later saying his idol was Gene Kelly. “I thought unlike Fred Astaire, Mr Kelly has that double whammy of sex appeal… Not that I even knew what sex appeal was, but I liked athletics and he moved like an all-star athlete.”

By the age of fifteen he was dancing professionally in local nightclubs. Two years later, when he graduated from high school, he moved to New York, got work in summer stock in St Louis, performing under the name "Mickey Calin".  Callan/Calin/Calinoff successfully auditioned for a small part on Broadway in The Boyfriend with Julie Andrew (you might've seen the Ken Russell film version), playing various parts over seven months; he was then in Catch a Star. He also danced on television and in nightclubs. 

Then came the big big break - Riff in West Side Story. "“There were a great many kids like me up for that part,” said Callan. “I was told I was too cute! Imagine! But I really wanted it, I was asked if I could backflip, so I did a backflip, and eventually, after a year of rounds, I got it. Riff set me on my way.”

Riff is one of the best parts, if not the best part, in one of the greatest musicals of all time and really established Callan, who was in it for seven months. During the show's run he was spotted by Joyce Selznick a famous casting director (her discoveries included James Darren) and she signed Callan to a seven year contract to Columbia off the back of his appearance. 

The studio system was dying off but there was a bit of a revival of signing young talent in the late 1950s, especially at studios that made a lot of television and continued to make B pictures, like Columbia. The studio also signed Evy Norlund, Glenn Corbett, Carol Douglas, Jo Morrow, Margie Regan, Joby Baker, Rian Garrick, Joe Gallison, and Steve Baylor... not a big list of future stars.

Callan was, however, given what those actors weren't - a nice support part in a big budget film, They Came to Cordura, playing one of several seemingly heroic soldiers escorted through the Mexican desert by Gary Cooper along with Rita Hayworth. The studio put him in a low budget circus picture for Sam Katsman, The Flying Fontanes. They also put him in a Dick Clark teen film, Because They're Young (as a delinquent trying to go good who romances Tuesday Weld) and he danced in Pepe. In Oct 1960 he left Columbia's record arm to sign with Paramount (see here) but he never enjoyed Darren's success as a singer.

Callan had looks, and could move, and act. But I think the main thing holding him back was he gave off a sort of intense swaggering self-love vibe. I'm not saying he was like that in person, not at all - but he lacked the sensitivity of say a Tony Curtis or Rock Hudson. He had charisma and was a potential star but needed careful handling.

Callan auditioned for the film version of West Side Story but didn't get it - possibly due to his Columbia contract, possibly they wanted a fresh slate. But he did dance in the film Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961), opposite Deborah Walley as Gidget. He was one of the troops in Mysterious Island .

He was well cast as a thug tormenting a puffy Alan Ladd in 13 West Street and romanced Deborah Walley again in Disney's Bon Voyage! The latter film demonstrates the issue with Callan - he lacked the affability of Tommy Kirk and when he rough houses Deborah Walley it's really scary. As I wrote in a piece on this film "he was a good looking guy, Callan, who could act, and dance, but his performances often had a strand of cruelty about them, he looked like a villain, and I really didn't want him and Walley to wind up together."

However he had a big hit with The Interns as a compromised doctor. Callan was in this alongside a lot of other Columbia contract talent like Cliff Robertson. It was a fun role with some meat in it - Callan plays a super ambitious intern, who dates a rich girl but also sees an older nurse on the side so she'll help his career; this gives him a packed schedule which leads him to take drugs... it's very well done and handled, leading to Callan breaking down at the end. The film was a hit and would have rejuvenated Columbia's faith in him. 

David Merrick offered Callan the lead in a Broadway musical, I Can Get it for You Wholesale, but they couldn't agree over money apparently so Elliot Gould took the part instead - and wound up marrying his co-star Barbra Streisand.    In November 1962 he talked about how he had his own publicist - see this here.

Callan had a showy small part as a pimp in Carl Foreman's cynical war picture The Victors - he's not in the film for very long and the leads went to other new faces (George Hamilton, George Peppard), and Callan presumably thought "hey why not me" but at least the film was a big hit.

The did The The New Interns, one of the few to return (along with Stefanie Powers and Telly Savalas with Dean Jones playing James MacArthur's role). He didn't have as much to do in this one, which hurt the film - in the original his character was comic and romantic but also serious, here he's just comic (in drag for one sequence) and romantic (Barbara Eden); the film hints it's going to deal with his character's past as a druggie, which would've been great, but throws it away. It's a NAGOATO sequel (not as good as the original).  Still it encouraged Columbia to sign him to a new six picture contract. Jack Lemmon had started his film career at Columbia and many pieces from this time would refer to Callan being a new Jack Lemmon.

Callan was announced for a film musical remake of Cover Girl which was never made and a Broadway musical Kelly. See here. But Callan was lucky to miss out on the Broadway Kelly which shut after one night

There was talk of Callan starring in King Rat from the novel by James  Cavell about a smooth operator in Changi during World War Two.He would've been perfect. But he lost out to George Segal who was also in The New Interns which must have really really hurt. Because that film, while considered something of a commercial and critical disappointment, kicked up Segal to a higher plane that he never really left. In fairness, Segal had more acting chops than Callan - he'd done heaps of Broadway and TV.

 It wasn't over yet - He did guest stints on television, Breaking Point and Twelve O'Clock High, then had his biggest hit to date as Jane Fonda's love interest in Cat Ballou but most of the attention for that movie went to Fonda and Lee Marvin. 

He was sent to England for You Must Be Joking, a farcical army comedy for Michael Winner - Callan was cast at Columbia's insistence but didn't do much for the film's box office. He doesn't fit in the movie, he sticks out - the whole film is like a trial run for Winner's better The Jokers.

In August 1965, Callan signed a four-picture deal with Columbia. Jackie Cooper, former actor turned exec at Columbia's TV arm, Screen Gems, offered Callan the lead in a pilot for a sitcom Occasional Wife. Callan asked Cooper what he needed TV for: Cooper replied, "This year we're asking you to do the series. In three years you may be asking us?" The deal was a good one -  $100,000 a year plus a percentage according to this. This didn't last long.  TV Guide did a profile on him here which refers to a partying lifestyle, "a reputation along the Sunset Strip-Vegas axis as one of the great new swingers. He had a Sinatra-like coterie of hangers on and regularly made the columns."

A1967 interview with him is here. Occasional Wife only lasted a season but marked a major shift in Callan's private life as he left his wife for his co star, Patricia Harty. 

After the sitcom was axed Callan might've been expected to return to movies or television but instead he appeared in a musical in Las Vegas, That Certain Girl. See here

In 1968 he was in a TV version of Kiss Me Kate with Robert Goulet.

By the late 60s Callan was out of fashion, Ric Dalton style - he no longer had the film offers or television lead offers. It was a very very quick fall, especially considering The Interns and Cat Ballou had been so popoular and not that long ago. I wonder if there were behaviourial/temperament issues. I have no proof of that - it's just conjecture.  But it does seem odd that a good looking, charismatic performer, who could act and move, didn't get any more leads. This was the time of spaghetti Westerns, war films in Yugoslavia, and telemovies. There were star parts going for former contract stars. But Callan didn't get any.

Not that he was unemployed. Callan kept busy on episodic TV like The Mary Tyler More Show,That Girl, The Name of the Game, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Ironside, Marcus Welby, M.D., Griff, McMillan & Wife, Barnaby Jones, 12 O’Clock High, Quincy, M.E., Charlie’s Angels, Simon & Simon, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, The Bionic Woman, four episodes of Murder, She Wrote, and eight episodes of Love, American Style. Callan also made the occasional feature like Frasier the Sensuous Lion, The Magnificent Seven Ride, Lepke and the Cat and the Canary. He did have the lead in 1974's The Photographer which was kind of remade as 1982's Double Exposure - in both Callan plays a psychotic photographer. See trailer here.  

He appeared in theatre around the country - a lot of musicals like Anything Goes, The Music Man (program here), George M, Bar Mitzvah Boy plus plays like Absurd Person Singular. He produced some musicals.

I don't think Callan was a great lost star. He was unlucky in that Hollywood made less musicals when he hit down  - at least less dancing musicals. He would've been fantastic as Riff in West Side Story  - too cruel to be Tony though.  The tide went out really quickly for him though. I mean, to go from a sitcom to being a permanent guest? I wonder if something else happened.

Callan appears as a character, in a way, in the novel version of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Agent Marv talks to Ric Dalton about Dalton's Western, Tanner, directed by Jerry Hopper, in which Dalton appeared alongside Ralph Meeker and Callan, and Dalton criticised Callan for "sounding like  a Malibu surfer".

TV Guide

Peter Hyams Top Ten

1. Capricorn One (1978). His best film. Everything works. 

2. Outland (1981). Not everything works. But lots of fun.

3. 2010 (1984). Thankless task. But it's fun and it's remained vivd for me.

4. Running Scared (1986). Fun buddy cop film.

5. Narrow Margin (1990). No one saw this when it came out but it's fun.

6. Our Time (1974). Sweet. Female writer. Not perfect but interesting.

7. Goodnight My Love (1972). Overrated but still entertaining.

8. End of Days (1999). Silly. But it has the courage of its silliness.

9. Enemies Closer (2013). Terrific Jean Claude Van Damme performance.

10. The Presidio (1988). Cheerful slick 80s Hollywood stuff with Meg Ryan as Sean Connery's trashy daughter.

Movie review - "Busting" (1974) **

 Peter Hyams first feature as director. Elliot Gould and Robert Blake are ideal as vice cops. The film has them busting a lot of people who shouldn't be in trouble with cops - prostitutes, gays. Maybe this was titillating in 1974. Or maybe it wasn't which is why this didn't do that well at the box office.

Excellent action sequences - in a market, cars. The violence is handled well. The acting is good - Gould is always good going undercover. It's episodic. But I found myself more on the side of Allen Garfield, the villain.

Elliot Gould Buddy Movies

 Just going over them there were a few

* Bob and Ted and Carol and Alice (1969) - with Robert Culp

*MASH (1970) - with Donald Sutherland

*Busting (1974) - with Robert Blake

* SPYS (1974) - with Donald Sutherland

*California Split (1975) - with George Segal

*Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976) - with James Caan

Doesn't quite make a top ten, I admit...

Movie review - "Harry and Walter Go to New York" (1976) *

 Cripes The Sing has a lot to answer for - Lucky Lady, Nickelodeon, this. It was probably heaps of fun to make. James Caan and Elliot Gould look like they're having fun as a song and dance duo who are like a low rent Hope and Crosby - only without really defined personas (Caan is dumb and confident, Gould, dumb and not as confident). They use their routines to pick pockets. They go to prison, wind up with classy thief Michael Caine. I think there's something about revenge. The film throws in Diane Keaton as a feisty woman, and Lesley Ann Warren as Caine's dolly bird.

I liked seeing Caan and Gould do songs but the film was annoying. Wacky music. Dumb plot, Not developed. Lacks focus. You could have cut out Caine's character - Caine is charming and pulls focus. The film doesn't get going until an hour in when they decide to rob a bank. 

The robbery sequence is painfully unfunny. Charles Durning is in it. Burt Young. Oh it was terrible.

Movie review - "The Lady Vanishes" (1979) **1/2

 I grew up hearing nothing but bad things about this movie. I think people were just so offended by it. But it has nice locations, stylish widescreen photography.

Some changes are fine, like turning Margaret Lockwood into a Carole Lombard screwball heroine played engagingly by Cybill Shepherd. I like Elliot Gould as a shaggy haired reporter. Their banter, where he talks about her legs and she talks about the men she married, is the most clearly George Axelrod bit of the movie (Axelrod wrote the script).

Other changes were silly. Why not keep someone trying to kill Angela Lansbury only for Shepherd to get a conk on the head? And have that cause her brain injury rather than Cybil doing it drunkenly.

Why not have Cybill Shepherd and Elliot Gould dislike each other at first and banter? Like getting him kicked out of the hotel room. And I missed the Oxford-Cambridge joke. And Shepherd wants to kiss Elliot Gould two thirds of the way through... why not hold off until the end? Did the nun get captured at the end? I wasn't sure.

Still it is a recognisable remake. There's Charters and Caldicott, the adulterous lovers, the nun who works for the baddies but helps them. Herbert Lom is always reliable but too familiar as a baddie - and I think the part would've been better with someone younger and more charming, more of a potential romantic threat to Gould for Shepherd. Angela Lansbury is fine as always but maybe too believable as a spy - dotty, old, tubby Dame Mae Whitty was more fun and unexpected.

I do think they would've been better off, if they wanted to remake it, updating it to the present day and setting it behind the Iron Curtain. I mean, they still had trains then.

The big issue I think is the direction from Anthony Page. He's not bad - perfectly servicable. But there's none of Hitchcock's atmosphere - the menace underneath at the beginning, the sense of Englishmen abroad, the paranoia of the main girl, the light by play.

It occurred to me at the end when Gould and Shepherd sing the tune Lansbury gives them that they were meant to co star in At Long Last Love - both can sing. Lansbury too. Not too late for a musical!

Movie review - "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)" (1972) **1/2

 Anthology movie consisting of seven sketches. A big hit for Woody Allen. Eveyone's got their own favourites. Woody Allen as a jester is a fun concept and that bit has some okay moments. Gene Wilder is hilarious falling for a sheep (why didn't he and Allen work together again? Wilder does Allen's work perfectly). The European cinema sketch is dull. Lou Jacobi in a woman's dress is awful. I wasn't wild about 'What's My Perversion' but I know lots liked it. I enjoyed Woody in an old dark house with John Carradine as a mad scientist. And the last sketch with Tony Randall, Burt Reynolds, etc is a masterpiece.

Apparently Elliot Gould once optioned the book before selling it to UA, who gave it to Allen. Gould would've been great in this - indeed in any Allen film. It's a shame they haven't worked together. I think Allen wanted him for Deconstructing Harry.

Movie review - "Bugsy" (1991) ***

 Warren Beatty was about ten years too old to really get the leading man aspects of his character. And someone like Jack Nicholson would have been better. But he's more energised than usual - he's trying something different.

This is a movie of scenes rather than a full cohesive narrative. They are energetic scenes though - James Toback could be a good writer. The dialogue cracks and sparkles, the blocking is interesting. Maybe they could have cut the Mussolini assassination subplot - or at least spent less time on it.

Joe Mantegna (and the script) doesn't quite get George Raft, but it is fun  to see Raft as a character. Annette Bening is excellent - she strikes sparks. She's a lot better here than in Love Affair.

This goes on a long time. I recall moments rather than a film. By the time Bugsy died I was kind of relieved. But I absolutely recognised it was a good film.

Movie review - "The Long Goodbye" (1973) **** (re-watching)

 Maybe I'm being peer group pressured into that four stars. I like Elliot Gould as Marlowe, I think that works. I love the use of soundtrack - overlapping dialogue and radio. I love the little quirks like the security guard who impersonates movie stars.

Sterling Hayden and Mark Rydell are stunningly good in their parts. Rydell is terrifying - it's a shame he doesn't get a come uppance/resolution. Nina Van Pallandt and the guy who plays Terry Lennox are more variable.

I didn't mind the finale - I totally got why Gould did it. It's better than being a little sook.

Arnie is in it.

Story review - "Trouble is My Name" by Ramond Chandler

 Early Chandler that's not Philip Marlow although there is a Marlow type. Elliot Gould read it. It is an odd length - feels a bit wonky. Like it really should be a novel Entertaining. The best character was the killer, smug and taunting. Not as good as his novels but worth reading.

Movie review - "Dangerous Lies" (2020) **

Unpretentious thriller which is a sort of cross between Angel Street and A History of Violence, quite well directed by it suffers from a lack of chemistry between the lead couple. Some decent scares and strong support cast, including Elliot Gould in a small role.

Movie review - "Escape to Athena" (1978) **

Like other ITC action films such as The Eagle Has Landed and Green Ice this is frustrating because it could easily have been so much better if just tighter and more focused. There is a strong action movie inside here waiting to get out. But it's flabby.

Lew Grade pointed out the first eighty minutes were a mixture of genres and the last forty minutes were solid action and he was dead right. I wonder if that first half is that way in order to give actors bits to do.

The filmmakers aren't skilled enough to juggle all the protagonists - Roger Moore's good German, Telly Savalas' resistance leader, Elliot Gould's USO guy.

It lacks a clear goal. At least Eagle it was easy - trying to kidnap Hitler. Here all the goals collide - making money, POWS escaping, helping knock out a V2 rocket. It needed to be simple - just stealing the treasure.They could have had different motives but keep it focused on the one macguffin.

The action stuff is good - there's a superb motorbike chase through the back alleys - the scenery is gorgeous. The cast is full of actors I like and they felt well-ish cast - Gould is perhaps allowed to mug a bit too much as a USO performer, I went with Moore as a German and Savalas and Niven were definitely ideal. Claudia Cardinale is wasted. Stefanie Powers is a lot of fun as a flirt. The William Holden Stalag 17 cameo is funny. Sonny Bono and particularly Richard Roundtree felt wasted.

The movie lacks a strong villain when it needed one. It also doesn't have a strong sense of place - I mean the resistance seems to have it over the Germans far too easily. Too many characters with too many agendas.

Dammit, it's frustrating. Just keep it simple, guys.

Movie review - "Capricorn One" (1978) ****

Really great fun - perhaps Peter Hyams' best film, a terrifically entertaining combination of conspiracy thriller and action film. The thesis is bold, simple and effective - NASA fake a landing on Mars. Astronauts James Brolin, OJ Simpson and Sam Waterston are forced to go along with it but Elliot Gould, a journo, figures out something is going on.

The first half of this barrels along like a freight train - there's not an ounce of fat on it. It sags a little in the middle with some repetitive scenes - in particular the Brenda Vaccaro moments felt like padding, or extra bits to give her. All she really needs is to tell Gould about the camp they went to which she could do in one scene, but she has two scenes with Gould and one with Hal Holbrook. Also there's two scenes with Gould and his editor whereas they only need one.

But it recovers for a splendid climax with two helicopters chasing Brolin around the desert. One of my favourite moments in action cinema is when the two stories interconnect and Gould lands in the desert in the plane piloted by Telly Savalas (who almost steals the film in a great cameo) and waves for Brolin to jump on board. It's a fantastic moment. That and running to the funeral.

If you think about the story too hard it gets wonky - I mean they go to a lot of trouble to erase the existence of Gould's friend (someone living in his apartment for a year? Why not just cause a fake accident?) and it's a bit slack to leave the studio where it was all filmed unoccupied.

But there's so many good things - the rousing score, the all star cast (people like Karen Black shine in small parts), the desert sequences where the astronauts get pummelled (this helps make the climax so satisfactory), the slangy dialogue.

Great fun.