Movie review - "Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man" (1962) **

 Adapting the Nick Adams stories wasn't a great idea - they are by nature episodic - though maybe it could've worked more as a "coming of age of Ernest Hemingway" type tale

Richard Beymer is hopelessly out of his element here - not dreadful just not capable. The role needed a really, really good actor - not just an actor, a star. Not sure who could've done it then. Paul Newman maybe even if he was too old.

But the script isn't great. Ten stories! Goes for over two hours!

Martin Ritt gives scenes in the vignettes to the guest stars - Paul Newman as a punch drunk boxer, Arthur Kennedy as dad, Dan Dailey as a drunk editor, Eli Wallach as a soldier. Most of them are not good. A lot of over acting.

Maybe could have worked if it had just focused on young Nick in the woods. Or Nick as a journalist. Or him having a romance in Italy. Together it felt lumpy. 

Movie review - "Cross Creek" (1983) **

 Worthy. Dull. Surprised it got green lit. Barry Spikings really liked Oscars. "The story of the woman who wrote The Yearling" isn't that sexy. Mary Steenbergen is fine. Peter Coyote a little dull. Malcolm McDowell is lively but has clunky dialogue. Alfred Woodard shines - story from her POV might've been more interesting.

This should've been a TV movie. 

 

Book review - "Ready When You Are, Mr. Coppola, Mr. Spielberg, Mr. Crowe" by Jerry Ziesmer

 Memoir of an assistant director has some decent moments but needed an edit. Too much Apocalypse Now and schedules not enough personalities. Fun sketches of Sly Stallone (nutty but endearing), Cameron Crowe (all positive), Tom Cruise (hyper), Robert Redford (charming but a c*nt), Babs (into everything), Peter Bogdanovich (didn't expect Illegally Yours to be made), Otto Preminger (a bully who was a pussycat).

Most memorable bit is fact Ziesmer's son killed himself. I did like him schmoozing extras on The Way We Were. I guess it's interesting how they did Superbowl in Black Sunday.  

Movie review - "Five Branded Women" (1960) **

 This has a tremendous high concept - five women accused of colluding with a German officer (Steve Forrest) have their heads shaved by partisans and are kicked out of town and have adventures.

There's a classy cast - Silvia Mangano, Jeanne Moreau, Vera Miles, Barbara Bel Geddes and Carla Gravina - as well as Van Heflin and Harry Guardino as partisans. So it's a Europudding. Weird accents.

Starts off interesting but then becomes about the men. The women don't get enough time. There's a big battle.

Martin Ritt slagged off this film.

The basic idea is still strong.

Movie review - "The Black Orchid" (1959) **

 Why did they greenlight this? Maybe it was post Rose Tattoo fever - another tale of a horny Italian widow, only even hotter, played by Sophia Loren. She falls for widower Anthony Quinn. Most conflict comes from Quinn's protective daughter Ina Balin.

All the acting is very good. Quinn is restrained and excellent. Loren has charisma. Balin very good.

It's just a bit dull. Sorry.

Movie review - "No Down Payment" (1957) **

 Sex in the suburbs - at least that's what I'm assuming Phil Yordan wrote and attracted producer Jerry Wald, but director Martin Ritt was more interested in the economics. 

Lots of acting. Mixes older Fox contract players (Jeffrey Hunter, Sheree North) with newer ones (Joanne Woodward) and method types (Pat Hingle). Fun to see Tony Randall in a serious role. 

The male roles are better than the female - Randall is a drunken salesman, Cameron Mitchell a war veteran, Pat Hingle worries whether to help an Asian workmate. Woodward has some fun as Mitchell's boozy wife. Patricia Owens has a full on breakdown scene after she's raped by Mitchell.

Too diffuse to be effective -too many characters to follow. Still, of interest, especially the characters of Mitchell and Randall.

When Owens is raped Hunter listens for about five seconds then goes to attack Mitchell - but Mitchell easily overpowers him. That's interesting. 

The ending has all the characters go to Church. Life in the suburbs seems very depressing.

Movie review - "Edge of the City" (1957) *** (warning: spoilers)

 Made with skill. Beautifully shot. Excellent acting. I acknowledge the historical importance of it in depictions of blacks.

But at heart this is still a TV play.   Like many TV play adaptations there's not enough story. John Cassavetes gets a job on the docks, works with Sidney Poitier, nasty Jack Warden wants Cassavetes to work with him. And... Oh there's a romance with a dull woman nicely played. All the acting is fine.

When Poitier is killed it's depressing. He has a wife and kids and he died because of Cassavetes and because he's black. Cassavetes is a deserter and... yeah. So. Whatever. 

It is well made. I couldn't get into it. Cassavetes and Poitier are full of star factor, Ruby Dee is fantastic.

Movie review - "The Long Hot Summer" (1958) **

 Disappointing. Tennessee Williams lite. CinemaScope, Fox stars, Method actors, Paul Newman looking sexy, Orson Welles mugging it up, Joanne Woodward isn't hot for Newman until the end so it's not fun to see Welles try to set them up. If she was hot for him but fighting it... that would've been fun.

Richard Anderson is dull though I guess that works. Tony Franciosca carries on. Lee Remick looks as though she's going to be more interesting than she is. Angela Lansbury provides solid support as always. 

I wanted to like this more than I did.

Unmade Ryan O'Neal

 A series of films that sound pretty good

1) Out of Africa, based on the famous book, from director Nic Roeg with Julie Christie - this could've been fantastic, different from the Pollack version but with Julie Christie... wow

2) The Champ, a remake of the 1932 film, directed by Franco Zefferelli - O'Neal was going to do this but quit when the director wouldn't let his son co star - big mistake, he did Oliver's Story instead, bigger mistake

3) The Bodyguard - same Lawrence Kasdan script, with Diana Ross, and John Boorman directing - would've been amazing... possibly, if the director didn't rewrite all the popularity out of it.

4) The Thorn Birds, based on the best selling novel with Arthur Hiller directing - an utterly, utterly perfect film for O'Neal, who stepped in when first choice Robert Redford pulled out... I think it fell over when Warner Bros decided to not make a movie out of it... it became a fabulously successful mini series with Richard Chamberlain... 

5) First Blood - Morrell's novel was optioned constantly from 1972 with Richard Brooks, and Martin Ritt among those seriously interested in doing it - potential stars included Al Pacino, Steve McQueen, Robert de Niro. Clint Eastwood, John Travolta, Powers Boothe... and Ryan O'Neal apparently. That's what he said in his memoirs - that Freddie Fields offered him the part but O'Neal turned it down because he didn't want to leave Farrah Fawcett at the time, which puts it in the early 1980s.

Movie review - "Hud" (1963) ***1/2

The sort of movie which is obviously well made and I think if I'd seen it when it came out I would've loved it but it's a little annoying to be honest. I'm not a massive Paul Newman fan. I like him - I mean who doesn't like him - but it's just such a loving star vehicle.

The character is a real shit head - he tries to rape Patricia Neal, he suggests having dad Melvyn Douglas ruled incompetent, he wants to sell diseased cattle.

But he's also handsome and charismatic, a cat nip to the ladies (who include Yvette Vickers), Neal admits to being attracted to him and isn't that upset by the attempted rape. And the "moral centers" of Melvyn Douglas and Brandon de Wilde are so dull especially de Wilde.

Superb performances by Newman, Douglas and Neal. De Wilde is serviceable. The film has a fantastic sense of place: the modern day west, with its silly rodeos and talent shows involving kids, and cattle round ups, dingy diners, bored housewives, brawls. Beautifully shot.

John Ashley is billed sixth but I couldn't spot him in the film.

Movie review - "The Sound and the Fury" (1959) *

Maybe one star is harsh considering the talent involved but this was a hard, hard slog. Heated southern melodramas can work a treat and this was from the creative team who did The Long Hot Summer but I loathed it.

Yul Brynner loses a lot of his on screen power with hair and feels miscast as the horrible uncle. He raises Joanne Woodward, who is too old for her role (she just seems old) and overacts, like everyone else.

Jack Warden plays a deaf mute and might have been effective but has a silly dyed hair. There's some other member of the family played by John Beal who gets one monologue and that's it. Margaret Leighton turns up as Woodward's mum and she overacts. Stuart Whitman comes in as a shirtless sexually harrassing carny worker and he chews the scenery. Warden shares a bed with a little black boy.

Are we meant to be happy that Brynner, who has helped raise Woodward, and reminds everyone of that fact, and seems to be a horrible person, kisses her and they might have a romance? That's incest!

The only cast member who seems at home is Ethel Waters. This movie is terrible.