Movie review - "I Walk the Line" (1970) **

 One of that trilogy of Tuesday Weld films she made when she turned down Bonnie and Clyde etc.

This should be good. Greg Peck as a sheriff in the south tempted by hot little Tuesday Weld, whose family are moonshiners. That's easy to grasp - it needs to be about his temptation, corruption, fall.

But it doesn't quite work. There's no sex. Weld's got plenty but not Peck - he's too solid. It needs to be about the temptation and corruption of a man. Needs more sleaze and crime.

Ralph Meeker brings it, as her dad. Ditto Charles Durning. They know what movie they're in. But Estelle Parsons is too white trash as the wife - the only contrast is she's old and less attractive, when it really needed to be she was lady like. Peck is never believable as someone new to town. They should have rewritten the movie for him - played it as an out of town liberal snob who gets seduced, wrecks his life.

The film really needed to be made in the late 1950s when it would've been properly sleazy.  Also Peck needed to have his life destroyed more at the end - to die, or go to prison or something. The movie pulls its punches.

Weld is good but she'd been playing these roles for too long and was getting older. The film could've been more rejigged for their ages and personas. 

Omar Sharif Top Ten

 (I recognise this article is very English language focused)

1) Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

2) Dr Zhivago (1965) 

3) Genghis Khan (1965) - no kidding! Surprisingly good.

4)  Top Secret! (1984) - small role but he's very funny.

5) The Tamarind Seed (1974) - decent thriller. 

6) The Burglars (1971) - excellent as a villain in this Belmondo movie. 

7) Funny Girl (1968) - his third hit.

 8) The Last Valley (1971)

9) Mackenna's Gold (1969) - not a good film but he's strong. 

10) Oh! Heavenly Dog (1980) - look, I remember this fondly. 

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.

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 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 - "The Million Pound Note" (1954) **

 Mark Twain's story had enough potential to be a decent film but it's not a good adaptation - no sense of character for the lead, no wish fulfilment, lack of subplots (needed a femme fetale, needed a villain, needed hero to do more cool stuff). Feels written for Alec Guinness. Gregory Peck isn't very good. No one is good, really, Sidekick valet doesn't even talk.

Colour is wasted. As are character actors. Dull female lead who seems greedy. Were there no others available?

Misfire.

Gregory Peck Top Ten

 1) To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

2) The Guns of Navarone (1961)

3) Spellbound (1945)

4) Duel in the Sun (1946)

5) Twelve O'Clock High (1949)

6) The Gunfighter (1950)

7) Roman Holiday (1953)

8) The Big Country (1958)

9) Cape Fear (1962)

10) MacArthur (1977)

Ah this list is boring... everyone says these films. Sorry!

What about Peck movies with connection to Australia

1) MacArthur - scenes in Australia

2) Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951) - written by Ivan Goff and originally meant for Errol Flynn

3) Million Pound Note (1954) - from script by Rex Rienits

4) On the Beach (1959) - set in and shot in Australia

5) Guns of Navarone (1961) - Richard Harris as an Aussie

6) The Dove (1973) - he produced it, it has scenes in Australia

7) Moby Dick (1998) - shot in Australia

8) The Omen (1976) - with Aussie Leo McKern

9) Fortunes of Richard Mahoney - Peck was meant to make this with Greer Garson

10) several of his collaborators emigrated to Australia: Casey Robinson (Days of Glory) and Anne Baxter (Yellow Sky)

Movie review - "Cape Fear" (1962) ****

 Robert Mitchum is electrifying - it's a brave performance in a way showing what a complete prick he could be.

He teams well with Gregory Peck whose decency and dullness (maybe that's unfair) is a wonderful counterpoint. Bergen rises to the occasion, particularly in the rape sequence - it's so powerful. 

I can understand the censor's unease about some because Peck's daughter (Lori Martin) looks really young. I mean, she looks twelve or something.

A simple story brought to life by excellent cast and writing plus divine photography and Bernard Herrmann's score. It's not exactly a barrell of laughs.

Superb support work from Barrie Chase the girl who got raped - is this is sensational role. Was this Joan Henry's influence on J. Lee Thompson? You don't normally see this kind of sensitivity.

The one flaw - the plan of Peck's character at the end, luring Mitchum into a trap with just one deputy. That's so risky and dumb. And not needed - they just could have Peck and his family go into hiding with a bodyguard.

And the final fight sequence probably drags on a bit.

Movie review - "The Chairman" (1969) **

 More interesting as a piece of social history than as an actually entertaining movie. Gregory Peck is a scientist who goes behind the bamboo curtain to play ping pong with Chairman Mao. The commies have an enzyme to make disease free food which would seem to be a Good Thing - he wants to make sure they don't hog it or something.

Anne Heywood has a blink and miss it role as a gal in love with Peck. There's actually a lot of screentime for Chinese characters, more than usual - people like Keye Luke and Burt Kwouk pop up. Arthur Hiller is  a nasty army officer with a shade over one eye glass.

It's not very exciting. Peck doesn't do much that's thrilling. He sleeps with a Chinese woman which is groovy I suppose. Decent chase in the end. Uninspiring Taiwan scenery standing in for China - the Hong Kong sequences are more visually interesting. 

That ping pong scene does get point for bizzareness.

Movie review - "MacKenna's Gold" (1969) **1/2

An odd movie - considered a flop at the time, though apparently a big hit in India, this is fascinating to watch today, in part because of its flaws but also because of its oddness.

The basic story is a simple Western - a bunch of people go after a map containing gold, facing the environment, Apaches, cavalry, each other. And it's core this is inherently medium budget at best - the main characters are a marshall, an outlaw who kind of loves him, a girl who comes along to prove the lead isn't gay, an Indian girl who wants to bang the marshall, a scary Indian, and a pursuing cavalryman.

Faced with this is then as if writer-producer Carl Foreman and director J. Lee Thompson thought "we can't just give them that, this is the blockbuster era" - and they jazzed it up: Cinerama photography, POV shots of people on horseback, a spectacular earthquake, location filming in the Grand Canyon, sweeping vistas.

It cost $7 million and it didn't need to. There is stunning photography but this is incorporated into some really obvious studio work.

The script is very patchy. Far too many scenes of Peck escaping and being recaptured. Around 45 minutes in Foreman introduces all these new characters - Raymond Massey, Edward G Robinson, Burgess Meredith, Lee J Cobb, Eli Wallach, Anthony Quayle, etc - and within twenty minutes they're all killed. Why even have them? (Maybe Foreman wanted to invoke High Noon which actually isn't a bad idea for a script - the town from High Noon looking for gold - but they set up all these people and then just kill them.) Would the cavalry really kill them all?

Some exciting action sequences. Raymond Massey and Burgess Meredith being killed by Apaches - Meredith pleading with glasses and money and being killed. A fight between Sharif and Peck at the end is very well done bar the studio work.

Plenty of nutty bits. The opening song abut a buzzard. The narration that feels shoved in after a tricky post production process. The effects at the end aren't entirely convincing. Julie Newmar and Omar Shariff show their arse swimming. A naked Newmar tries to hump Peck in the water (he's clothed) then when he rejects her she tries to kill Sparv. George Lucas made a short film during the shoot. Dimitri Tiomkin co produced.

The acting is pretty good - Savalas is reliably excellent. It's one of Sharif's best performances, the film should've have focused more on him and Gregory Peck. Peck is solid. Camilla Sparv has a big chance as the girl, and she's gorgeous but not really up to it.

Movie review - "The Boys from Brazil" (1978) **

I still remember the opening sequence of this film, when fresh faced Steve Guttenberg stumbles upon Nazis in Paraguay and is stabbed to death as a result.

The scene sequence still has power - it's the best in the film. After that the action slows down and the film is bogged in accent acting of Laurence Olivier and Gregory Peck. Alright, Peck, you play a villain we get it. Alright Olivier you've got an accent, we get it.

The Nazis don't feel to be a threat - I mean, James Mason tries to take out Peck. The kid who plays the young Adolph isn't good. It's not scary. It feels too silly.

Book review - "John Frankenheimer: A Conversation with Charles Champlin"

Frankenheimer had one of the all time hot streaks - both during the Golden Years of television where he was one of the stars, but also his early films. Young Savages, All Fall Down, The Manchurian Candidate, The Train, Seven Days in May, Seconds... Critics cooled on him from Grand Prix onwards after which his career seemed to wobble: The Extraordinary Seaman, The Fixer, The Gypsy Moths, I Walk the Line, The Horseman, Impossible Object, The Iceman Cometh, 99 and 44/100% Dead,. There were some "commercial" films - French Connection II, Black Sunday, The Prophecy - and a drinking problem. His career dipped in the 80s but he came back in the 90s with TV work. This book is before Ronin.

Obviously a smart guy - lucky in how he got into tv, but you make your own luck, developing material, taking chances, taking risks. Strong work ethic - he managed to kick the booze. He whinges a bit about studios and like all people in their memoirs blames other people for his films that flopped but in fairness takes some brickbats too.

The film is full of interesting bits like his sometimes prickly relationship with Burt Lancaster, saying James Garner was only effective when playing "a shit", his hopes for The Horseman (the Afghan government offered him free land), Gordon Stulberg of Fox agreed to finance 99 and 44/100% Dead if Richard Harris was cast, Don Johnson was a pain on Dead Bang.

An entertaining book, I just wish it included some of his later career.

Movie review - "Force 10 from Navarone" (1978) ** (warning: spoilers)

A real mess of a film - you can feel all the different hands in it. It sort of starts off paying homage to the original, showing clips from it, and the early scenes have banter between Robert Shaw, playing Gregory Peck, and Edward Fox, playing David Niven. It's really awful banter though both being stiff upper lip jolly good types, which is inconsistent with the original.

Then the film kind of forgets Fox and becomes about Shaw and Harrison Ford. Shaw and Fox are sent on a mission to kill a traitor in Yugoslavia, Ford is on a mission to blow up a bridge. There's some double cross and twists but none of it that interesting.

Carl Weathers comes along and characters comment on him being black, and he has an awful scene where he sooks because he's left out of the loop. You could cut his character. You could cut Fox's character too. Ford has the odd good moment but wasn't comfortable enough as a star to play himself. Shaw is okay - but character work is weak.

We know Franco Nero is bad so his betrayal is not a surprise. Barbara Bach livens things up with a bit of nudity - the film could have done with more of it. And more females. Guns had two - two romances. We don't even get one romance. It's very boys own. They should have made Carl Weathers a girl, maybe.

There's the occasional good bit - shooting Nero in a van, the final raid on the dam. But it's an underwhelming mess. George MacDonald Fraser did uncredited work on the script. I'm sure it was a hard gig, but he didn't save the day.

Movie review - "What Price Glory?" (1952) ***

One of those "oh yeah he made that didn't he" John Ford movies - a remake of a very influential 1920s play, whose influence can be felt on Ford's work with its quarrelling soldiers.

I actually didn't mind this. It should have been made on location at this stage in the game - the colour photography doesn't look good in the studio setting. You can sense it was once meant to be a musical - Corinne Calvet sings a number in a bar, and Marissa Pavan sings (well, mimes) to Robert Wagner.

But the basic material is still strong - two experienced soldiers squabbling with each other, stealing the same woman, then being brave, and going back to squabbling.

It's a strong cast but it doesn't quite click. It was weird to watch - individually Jimmy Cagney, Dan Dailey and Corinne Calvet were fine, but... they didn't have the right chemistry. I believed Cagney and Dailey on their own but not as long term rivals. I bought Calvet as a French tavern owner - she's bright and engaging - but I never felt Cagney or Dailey were genuinely interested in her.  I just really wish John Wayne and Ward Bond were in it (they played in a stage production directed by Ford along with Gregory Peck and Maureen O'Hara!)

The best section is in a dug out when a soldier has a breakdown, and Robert Wagner dies. This has a serious element that the film could have done with more of.

It's vigorous and bright. No classic but decent enough.

Movie review - "The Guns of Navarone" (1961) ***

I love guys on a mission film but this one is not among my  favourites. It's too long and too flabby lacks a twist or two.

The things I liked:
* the fact it features three genuine stars, Peck, Niven and Quinn, and the support cast is super strong Irene Pappas, Stanley Baker, James Darren, Gia Scala)
* the location filming in Greece
*the photography
* the storm scenes
* the bits with the team climbing up the cliff
* the basic set up
*Papas killing Gia Scala
*the relationship between Peck and Quinn
*the music.

The things I remembered that jarred:
* Niven's miscasting as someone who refuses to be an officer
*Niven's weird attachment to Anthony Quayle
* the editing of the ending - what should be exciting was dragged out.

The things I forgot which jarred:
* James Darren singing a song in Greek
* the nobility of German Walter Gotel

Needed a lot of fat stripped off. Still fun though.

Movie review - "The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit" (1956) ***

50s suburban executive melodrama - based on a best seller, lots of men in suits being dissatisfied with their life, housewives being dissatisfied with their lives. I actually enjoyed this a bit - it touches on some important themes, it captures a time and a place (or at least what I imagine that to be).

It's not Terribly Important like it thinks it is but it's handled with sensitivity. Nunnally Johnson, who wrote and direct, does a decent job. He's helped by Gregory Peck who is ideally cast as the war veteran who is struggling financially - I mean he does have three kids and a live in house keeper, and the wife doesn't work.

Jennifer Jones' wive is impatient for money but she's not a bitch -she's encouraging of Peck's career, gives good advice, and is very loyal at the end when it turns out he's got a kid in Italy.

The film ducks  scenes you'd think would be obligatory - no reunion between Peck and Marisa Pavan, no confrontation between Jones and Pavan, no meeting the kid. There's a subplot about Peck almost losing the house he inherited and then not (a "choked on a peanut" story... they're in danger! no they're not! and they didn't do anything to get out of it) Frederick March has a slutty daughter but she just goes off and continues to be a bit trashy.

Some decent acting. Lee J Cobb has a tendency to wear silly make up in his films and he does here but is quite good - so is Frederick March. Peck and Jones are good - so is Pavan.

I laughed how a big plot of the film is Peck writing a speech - should he tell boss Marsh what he wants to hear, or go his own way. Screenwriter Johnson obviously related to this!

But the film can't be dismissed. Some stuff is powerful - March realising how empty his life is, Peck having to kill in the war and accidentally killing his friend - and the themes are relevant: the importance of not being addicted to work, and getting kids to not watch a lot of TV, and working through marriage. Johnson was very good on marriage. It's better than many other 20th Century Fox films made in this area.

Movie review - "Night People" (1954) ***

There was a time growing up when this always seemed to be on TV. Its an unpretentious, entirely decent thriller from Nunnally Johnson, which was shot on location in Germany in CinemaScope but probably would have been better off in black and white on a small screen.

It's about what happens when an American soldier is kidnapped in Berlin. His father, wealthy Broderick Crawford, turns up demanding something must be done, but cool Gregory Peck is on the case.

There's some okay twists - it's all about the Russians wanting back an old English couple. At times I wish we'd meet the Russians more but I guess that adds to the spookiness of it. I think the Crawford role is wasted - he starts off great, being a typical rich American, then kind of fades away. Towards the end when he goes "I guess maybe I care about other people as much as my son" it doesn't mean anything because he's got no power to decide. I reckon they should have made this character a woman like Bette Davis or something and she could have had a romantic relationship with Peck. That would have been better than Rita Gam's secretary who just pines for Peck.

Anita Bjork isn't much as the femme fetale - the climax involves Peck punching her unconscious. I did like how Peck tried to trick her into drinking poison by taking it himself only she doesn't take it. That was good.

It does feel cheating somehow that the real baddies are actually Nazis working for the Communists instead of just communists. And maybe it could have done with an extra twist or two - using the soldier's girlfriend  as a traitor, say, or the mother of the soldier more.

Still, a solid effort and I think Johnson does a good job as director.

Movie review - "Black Widow" (1954) ** (warning: spoilers)

Nunnally Johnson, who wrote, produced and directed this, pitched it as "All About Eve for suspense movies" which is great shorthand and sounds like a fantastic movie but this is a bit flat. It's got compensations - stars, CinemaScope, colour - but lacks Eve's X factor stars, and theatrical atmosphere.

Eve had a few bland spots in its cast - Hugh Marlowe, Anne Baxter - but they were more than compensated for by Bette Davis, George Sanders, Celeste Holm and Gary Merrill. They also had Joseph Mankiewicz's scintillating dialogue.

Johnson was an excellent writer, but didn't have Mankiewicz's knack for quips. Maybe he could have got there but he was presumably busy doing the producing and directing.

He wasn't as experienced a director - I think this stopped him from capturing the theatre atmosphere this badly needs. It doesn't help that there are few scenes in cafes, backstage, on stage, on the road, etc... it's mostly people hanging out in plush apartments. For instance, Van Heflin is supposed to be a Broadway producer but I never got the impression he actually did that for a living. Perhaps this would have been better off being shot in black and white.

The staging of so many of the scenes is perfunctory - characters just hang around, saying their lines. There's no feeling that this is made by someone who knows were to put the camera.

But then Heflin's presence is a debit for the whole movie - a glowering, intense actor, Heflin could be effective in the right role but he wasn't a star, which is what this movie needs. Gregory Peck, who had been discussed, would have been ideal - an everyman the audience could have related to, so we cared when he was unjustly accused of murder.

Peggy Ann Garner is all wrong as the girl who is killed. Maybe I'm too used to seeing her as a child star, but she seemed weird - with a perm, and lacking glamour/charisma. She also simply isn't very good as an adult actor. (In her defence she has some dreadful dialogue about being a writer).

Gene Tierney is alright as Heflin's wife - she isn't given much to do. She spends most of her time literally just lounging around.

Far better are Ginger Rogers (as a bitchy actress - the Clifton Webb part), Reginald Denny (her husband), and George Raft (doing solid work as the investigating detective). Virginia Leith (an actor I wasn't very familiar with) shines in a showy role as Garner's old flatmate, and I enjoyed African-American actress, Hilda Simms, getting a decent scene with Heflin.

It's a shame because it's a decent enough mystery. It's fantastic that Rogers is the killer. It just has some key miscast leads and lack atmosphere and ordinary direction.

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

A good, solid Western story is perhaps given over-reverential treatment. This seemed to happen sometime with epic Westerns - I'm thinking of Duel in the Sun and The Outlaw - they were given all this weight.

Gregory Peck is ideally cast as the former sailor who goes out west to marry sexy little minx Carroll Baker, only to discover that Baker's dad Charles Bickford is engaged in a feud with rival owner Burl Ives; Bickford's overseer Charlton Heston loves Baker and thus hates Peck; Burl Ives' son Chuck Connors doesn't really want to be involved in the feud; Baker's friend Jean Simmons falls for Peck.

Those are juicy roles - characters with clearly defined, contrasting objectives, and for the most part this is strong drama. It's got a decent theme - Peck doesn't want to get dragged into a pointless feud, and Baker thinks she's cowardly.

The ending doesn't quite work, full of contrived moments (Ives shooting Connors, Bickford and Ives shooting each other with duelling pistols). It also has unsatisfactory moments: we never find out what happened to Baker, the romance between Peck and Simmons is undercooked.

Strong performances from Bickford and Ives; Heston makes an effective villain. I like Baker - her throaty voice and blonde looks gives intensity to the part. Jean Simmons is a winsome "whatever"; some writers like William Goldman adore Simmons but honestly I could take her or leave her. Much of the action is filmed in long shot. The photography and music are stirring.

Movie review - "The Sea Wolves" (1980) **

Follow up to The Wild Geese with many of the same cast and crew - it was even meant to have Richards Burton and Harris as well but they became unavailable, being replaced by Gregory Peck and David Niven.

This has the advantage of being based on a true story and has a great central concept - over the hill soldiers being left out of the war get a chance to do something heroic - but they don't develop it properly. The focus of the action should have been on David Niven and co, fat Blimp types who get a last minute chance to be heroic. There is ample opportunity for comedy, poignancy, even romance... Dad's Army showed how it should be done.

But instead we get all this time devoted to spy shenanigans involving Roger Moore, who is clearly young, lithe and active - he runs around Goa, romancing a femme fetale, collecting information. At times the film comes close to being a Moore star vehicle instead of an ensemble piece. 

There's also Gregory Peck who, again, is an active soldier. The film is weighed far too much towards them - namely, conventional war stories - rather than what would've made this special. It needed more of David Niven, Trevor Howard, Patrick Macnee, etc. There is some but not enough.

The script isn't as good either - it lacks clearly defined characters and structure. There's no sense of the British Empire fading, or life in India. There are some good bits like the killing of Trevor Howard, and the final raid is well done, but it's disappointing.

England produce so many great character actors and the story is so strong - based on a true incident, no less - that I think Euan Lloyd should give some serious thought to remaking this. Imagine it with Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, etc... And a better director than Andrew McLaglen.