Movie review - "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" (1974) *** (warning: spoilers)

 The most Sam Peckinpah title of all Peckinpah films, this has become a big cult, with its title, seedy Mexican setting, Warren Oates leading role, interesting cast (including Gig Young and Robert Webber as assassins), love story at its core between Oates and Isela Vega, woman who is raped but also enjoys it (Kris Kristofferson drags Vega off to the bushes but she seems willing).

It's almost two hours and feels dragged out with lots of scenes of chatting in the car - Oates and Vega and then Oates and the head. There is violence but it is short and sharp.

Beautifully shot, Mexican locations, dodgy views of men and women, Oates having a high old time, Young looking seedy AF, chatting to a head. Vega's murder happens off screen - he wakes up and finds she's been killed, but that is interesting. It also happens half way through. We never meet Garcia - lot of off screen drama.

But the film has its own integrity.

Movie review - "Second Chance" (1953) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

 One of Bob Mitchum's junky thrillers he made for Howard Hughes at RKO. It's enjoyable and low rent and gives a decent 50s role to Linda Darnell. The copy I saw had a washed out look,  I think because it was shot in 3D. It was shot partly in Mexico.

It's best remembered if at all for its climax on a cable car - the last twenty minutes. I wonder if more could've been made of this.

Linda Darnell is a solid actor but I never quite believed she genuinely loved Mitchum. I did buy him loving her - he was committed in this role. Jack Palance is the best - genuinely terrifying. Dan Seymour adds some Sidney Greenstreet-style class. 

During the cable car some English supporting actor gets all this dialogue that should've gone to Darnell. It was quite a shock to see a guy plunge to his death in front of his son - and that kid had his mother murdered by his dad the previous night. Full on!

Enjoyable second tier action which will best please fans of Palance, Darnell and Mitchum.

Movie review - "The Evil That Men Do" (1984) ** (warning: spoilers)

 Bronson and Thompson but not a Cannon Film - ITC. It's actually not a bad story - Bronson is sent to assassinate a torturer in Suriname. There's torture of a naked man, Bronson pretends to be a bisexual married man to pick up bisexual Raymond St Jacques, Bronson lies under a bed as two women make love, Teresa Saladana is in one of her first post-stalking-stabbing roles, J. Lee Thompson was called in to replace Fielder Cook at the last minute.

It was all shot in Mexico and I think that adds to it. The script is solid - the torturer is smart, there's decent complications in the form of a local CIA officer. They throw in a car chase and Bronson blows some people away. The torturer is killed by a random group of miners at the end, which is actually a nice touch.

It's not a bad movie. More routine apart from that bisexual scene.

Movie review - "Fiesta" (1947) ***

Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban play twins - they probably should have played childhood sweethearts so the relationship had som urst.

This was fun. There's location work in Mexico, some dance numbers - including one to 'La Bamba'. Its very colourful and I liked the cast.

It really is Montalban's story - the plot is about his desire to be a musician but dad wants him to be a matador. Williams is his twin sister who in one bit steps into the bull ring for him which is quite progressive. But that apart she doesn't do that much - she's got a boyfriend John Carrroll so doesn't even fall in love on screen. Cyd Charisse is Montalban's love but they don't fall in love either.

This really needed to be a love story between Williams and Montalban to give her something to do - as it is, it kind of looks like she's into him. She only does a little bit of singing by the way.

Mary Astor plays the mother of Williams and Montalban.

Movie review - "Rain for a Dusty Summer" (1971) *1/2

Called a spaghetti Western but it's not really. It's a Spanish film set in the 1917 Mexican Revolution where Ernest Borgnine shouts a lot as a general who really really hates the Catholic Church. Borgnine's role is only small - he doesn't leave the one set. The star is some actor who plays a smiling guitar playing priest who escapes from the authorities. Some times the tone is light - the priest is in drag - other times it's serious - the army is always shooting innocent people and at the end the priest is killed by a firing squad.

It looks cheap and is badly dubbed. This was the last film from director Arthur Lubin. Catholics may like it. And Lubin/Borgnine completists.

Movie review - "Sombrero" (1953) **1/2

MGM had a bunch of Latino types under contract - Ricardo Montalban, Fernando Lamas - so Dore Schary decided to make a film set in Mexico. They had to pad out the cast with some Latino-ish types - Canadian Yvonne de Carlo, Italian Vittorio Gassman, Cyd Charisse, Italian Pier Angeli.

This is a collection of three stories, which loosely interconnect (some characters know each other, everyone lives in the same village). They're all romances - poor de Carlo loves rich Gassman but he's dying, cocky Montalban loves retiring Angeli, poor Rick Jason (another Schary discovery whose career did little) loves rich Charisse.

None of it is particularly interesting. It was shot on location in Mexico, which gives it novelty, but doesn't seem terribly authentic. There's an occasional great dance number and I wondered if this wouldn't have been better as a musical so you could've at least gotten some great dance numbers.

Movie review - "The Phantom Gunslinger" (1967, released 1970) *

Weird comedy -was there a market for such things in the 1960s because it reminded me of something like Unkissed Bride. Troy Donahue, career firmly on the slide now, actually seems to try as an aspiring preacher who winds up sheriff of a town overrun by gangsters.

It was shot in Mexico with a mostly Mexican cast although the heavily endowed Brit actor Sabrina is in it. There are bright colours and nutty behaviour - it's like an episode of The Monkees or something. only not funny. It's hard going a lot of the time. My four year old watched it with me part of the time and liked the colour and movement.

Albert Zugsmith directed this!

It should be said too that Donahue seems to throw himself into the role, acting with more energy and pace than he did in his soulful Delmer Daves hey day.

Movie review - "The Wild Bunch" (1969) ****1/2 (re-watching)

I saw this at the Lammle in Beverly Hills. Walon Green gave a talk with two academic/writers who hogged the mike over him, as if we weren't more interested in what Green had to say. Anyway it was good to see on the big screen.

Some random observations:

* It's too long. A lot of stuff I kept thinking "that could be cut" - particularly in between the heist and the final shoot out there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing.

*Angel, the Mexican, really is a bad ass - he shoots people with as much relish as the gringos, and shoots his ex girlfriend, and threatens his fellow gang members with shooting.

*I think there's at least 20 prostitutes who get a line or a close up - there's a lot of prostitutes.

* The action scenes are cleverly constructed and devised - the Wild Bunch are clever. I also like how the logistics of it are discussed - the importance of raising money, seeking investors, etc.

* The finale is magnificent. The final reflective moments, "why not", the walk into town, shooting, etc.

* Ernest Borgnine's character feels inconsistent. He doesn't sleep with whores but he drinks and is as harsh as the others.

*Edmond O'Brien is nearly unrecogniseable even on the big screen.

*William Holden is great. Actually all the casting is excellent. The Mexican actors are great too.

*The production design and cinematography are rich and true. It looks amazing.

It is a classic. Peckinpah had a lot of issues though!

Movie review - "Captain from Castille" (1947) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

20th Century Fox went on the make so many uninspired historical epics that either starred Tyrone Power or wanted to star him, that it was a jolt to rewatch this - the first of the cycle (he'd made some before he went to war eg Lloyds of London but this one kicked off the post-war-in-colour cycle) - and see how good it is.

Not a masterpiece, but very good drama, despite the inevitably dodginess of movie about Cortes' expedition to South America - and knowing all the genocide and destruction that the Indians would suffer.

The first part is extremely strong with Power as a nobleman whose family is tormented by the Spanish Inquisition led by John Sutton - an actor I loathe in heroic parts but who makes a great villain. Power decides to hotfoot it to the New World, along with recovering boozer Lee J Cobb (a lot better than I thought he'd be) and peasant Jean Peters. They make a decent trio - Cobb has a character to play as well as wacky sidekick (someone haunted by a troublesome past who can't handle alcohol) and Peters is excellent in her debut. Yes, she plays an adoring peasant who just wants Power, but you go with it because of the class difference and Power is very handsome. It's also cool how Power is in love with a high class lady so Peters is always insecure.

Cesar Romero has one of his best chances as Cortez, a rogue who is a bit handsy with Peters. He's no saint that's for sure, quite ruthless, and it's not hard to imagine him devastating South America.

The ending has Sutton come back and though we miss a big confrontation with him and Power there's a great melodramatic moment where Peters stabs Power so he won't go to prison. Really that should have been the ending - it has such symmetry. But I guess they don't deserve to die.

Movie review - "Sorceress" (1982) **

The success of Conan the Barbarian kicked off a cycle of copycat sword and sorcery films from Roger Corman, starting with this one, where he hired his old comrade Jack Hill. Hill disliked the experience and result so much he took off his name as writer (Jim Wynorski gets sole credit) and director, but kept it on as producer.

It's about two identical twin women of royal lineage, which actually is a great idea, but the film doesn't do anything with it - instead of using the stock Corsican Brothers route of having them grow up apart as different people, this one has them grow up together, so they're basically the same person, so you get no conflict. Literally they are identical. This for me is the biggest problem in the movie. The Corsican Brothers has a great concept - twins grow up separately, one rich and one poor, and unite to take on the baddies.

There's some funny silly moments like the girls being so naive they don't know what a naked man looks like, and quite a sexy one where one girl is having sex and the other one feels it - more of this stuff would have been great.

The special effects are hokey but I didn't mind. There are some spooky scenes towards the end in a cave - given a lower than expected budget director Jack Hill would have, in hindsight, been better off doing more scenes like this. (I realise that's easy to say from this point of view.)

It is undercast - the leads are twins and good looking, they are fine, but they needed stronger support and don't get it. There's too much emphasis on the dull male hero with a weird perm and I get where the comic viking was meant to be coming from but the actor doesn't get there. The satyr is just creepy.

The story should be simple but winds up needlessly complex. Why kill off that guy at the beginning and have him come back? Why not just keep him alive? The lead girls aren't central to the action enough - they're saved too often.

And yet... there is action, it looks good set on film (much better than later Corman productions) and it was shot a lot on location (in Mexico). It has a sense of adventure. Not as bad as I had been led to believe, more frustrating because it could have so easily been better. It's such a waste Jack Hill hasn't made a film since this time.

Movie review - "Stronghold" (1951) **

I'd like to know a bit more about the background of this film because the script was credited to Wells Root who has a lot of credits and it is a decent story but the result is really garbled and confusing.

Veronica Lake, in her last film before a hiatus, is a woman who arrives in Mexico to escape the civil war. That's a good idea - you've got Emperor Maximilian and Carlotta and revolutionaries. It was shot in Mexico. Zachary Scott is good value as a nasty aristocrat and Arturo de Cordova is fine as noble who is secretly a revolutionary albeit with the requisit amount of sexual harasment of the heroine. It's Robin Hood set in Maximilian Mexico with Lake as Maid Marian - that should work.

But it gets confusing with people being captured and escaping and recaptured. One minute de Cordova is on top then it's Scott and I wasn't sure where Lake's loyalties lay. Then thisre mine got flooded and people were being captured.

Its frustrating because all the ingredients are there - a sword fight in a cave, a mine flooding, romance, peasants uprising, a last minute reprieve from a hanging. Production values are fine, especially in the second half. Lake is wooden - her acting got worse as she went on - but she looks okay. Scott is good.

A curio. There's narration at the beginning and dubbing - these feels cut about.

Movie review - "Vera Cruz' (1954) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Fun Western which I think I'd really love if it didn't have Gary Cooper in one of the lead roles. I've developed such an intense dislike for Cooper - he's so gaunt and worn out here he looks like he already has cancer (maybe he did), and he's so weak and whiny, playing a, gee, poor old Confederate who's lost his land so is moving around Mexico. He seems to be after a pay day but he's as honorable as anything - you never think for a moment he might do the wrong thing.

He's blown off the screen acting wise by Burt Lancaster who is superb as a smiling villain. Mind you Lancaster does have the best part - all flashing teeth, and eating like a pig, and getting offended easily, and having a bromance with Cooper, and being super brilliant fighter. You get the sense that Lancaster really likes Cooper but you never get the feeling Cooper likes Lancaster.

Super impressive gallery of supporting rogues including Charles Bronson, Jack Elam and Ernest Borgnine - you wish they'd been given more to do. Maybe that's unfair, they do have a bit to do, but they are generally lumped together and its hard to tell them apart.

Denise Darcel (countess) and Sara Montiel (local) have quite large roles but neither are particularly good actors.

The budget was big and the film was shot in Mexico. Aldrich uses it well - production values are high, and there's lots of shots from a distance with soldiers on the horizon.

Some clever bits of writing such as getting out of being surrounded by Mexicans by using kids. Aldrich's misogyny was already apparent - he's got Lancaster slapping Darcel, and a really uncomfortable attempted rape by Bronson on Montiel. I know everyone's tough and has a rough time in Aldrich films, but he doesn't have women inflicting the violence.

Still a good example of how to make a vehicle for two stars.

Movie review - "Shark!" (1969) ***

Sam Fuller tried to take his name off this and as a result his cultusts haven't paid too much attention to it but it does still feel like a Fuller film - lots of tough guys being sweaty and the gal as ruthless as the main guys.

This isn't a bad adventure tale - set in Africa but shot in Mexico - about people diving for treasure. Burt Reynolds is good as the soldier of fortune who gets involved with Barry Sullivan, Arthur Kennedy and Silvia Pinal.

The acting is solid, there's some good action and scenes. Better than I thought it would be.

Movie review - "Jet Across the Atlantic" (1959) **

The disaster film cycle of the 1970s was well known; less was the disaster film cycle of the 1950s, where a bunch of drama played on on a plane - No Highway, The High and the Mighty, Zero Hour, Jet Pilot, The Crowded Sky.

This is one such entry (shot in Mexico!), where the subplots include: FBI agent George Raft bringing back accused murderer Guy Madison; Madison's fiancee Virginia Mayo; nutter George MacReady, so traumatised by the death of his child that he's decided to take down the plane and kill everyone; diva Illona Massey.

The story has a few flaws and contrivances (eg how Madison's innocence is proved - it just happens) but something's always going on - a little old duck taking pity on Madison and Mayo and arranging for them to be married is unexpectedly sweet; the pilots get poisoned so Madison has to land the plane (just like in Flying High); there's poison in the airvents; a little romance between Brett Halsey and another girl.

Raft isn't a very good agent - he falls asleep allowing Madison to steal his gun and later Madison knocks him out and Raft shoots Madison with all these other people around. I liked his relationship with Madison and wish there's been more of it. Virginia Mayo's character is a wet drip, just hanging off her man.

Some of the acting is very good - eg Macready, Massey; everyone is professional. I enjoyed seeing old Raft in this movie, well cast and tough. Madison's not bad - he'd learnt a few things by now. Byron Haskin directs with competence and pace.

Movie review - "Island of the Snake People" (1971)

Towards the end of his life Boris Karloff worked with some exciting new directors - Peter Bogdanovich, Michael Reeves and Jack Hill. He actually made more movies with Hill than the other two - four at the end of his life which were Mexican films with some Karloff footage shot in Los Angeles.

They are not very highly regarded movies, even by the most devoted Karloff fan, and really only for completists. There are some effective moments here however and it's not a bad story: a voodoo cult is running riot on a small island, under the thrall of a priest. Karloff plays a rich local landowner - do you reckon he had anything to do with it? He's got a niece who is a temperance campaigner, one of several interesting little tidbits.

There's also a few ceremonies involving a snake, one where a woman puts a snakes head down her throat; a dwarf, some necrophilia and chicken sacrificing, plus two heroic police investigators, one handsome the other a character actor, a snake dancer, and some half-decent atmosphere. It lacks logic and Karloff's absence for most of filming is irriatingly evident at times - this one boosts his presence by featuring his photo heavily during the credits but it's not enough.

Movie review – “Vera Cruz” (1954) ***1/2

Burt Lancaster ceded top billing to Gary Cooper for this engaging Western but easily blows the elder actor off the screen – he has the better part, as the double-crossing, humourous, ruthless outlaw, but his performance is much better too. Cooper is dull and stolid as a dull, stolid former Confederate officer just trying to raise enough money to get his plantation going again (gee what a nice guy, wanting to get the slaves back to work). 

 

I'm really getting to loathe Gary Coooper - I'm always hearing about how he does this subtle acting when no one's looking but I can't see it. Maybe I have to see him on the big screen.

 

Still, he does have charisma and this is a fun movie. There are some terrific visual scenes of the dynamic duo being surrounded by masses of Mexicans including on top of a building (slow pan in a circle). Later on they’re surrounded by a gang (another pan). 

 

The film is full of double crosses and reversals - rescued women rob their rescuers, damsels in distress are decoys for gold, even the noble revolutionaries are prone to blackmail. Superb support cast including Charles Bronson, Ernest Borgnine and Cesar Romero; underdeveloped female roles.

Movie review – “The Wild Bunch” (1969) *****

Sam Peckinpah’s masterpiece – a cast full of boozy, grizzled actors, plenty of gunfights and boozy, lyrical interludes, action south of the border down Mexico way, most of the female characters are whores, there’s talk of honour and comrades and a shot of a baby sucking on its mother’s tit. Every action sequence is memorable, there are countless classic lines (“why not?”, “it’s not whether you give your word it’s who you give it to”, “I wish to God I was with them”). Few moments in cinema history strike the chord (in men, anyway) than the climax: Holden looking to his last drink and last women, then marching with his mates to their death. The directors cut introduced flashback footage – the film would have been better off without it.

Movie review - "Nacho Libre" (2006) **1/2

On one hand its admirable the director of Napoleon Dynamite didn't sell out with his follow up. Despite a high concept sounding idea (Jack Black as a Mexican wrestler), the film goes along its quirky style, confounding expectations (a romantic interest that's unconventional, his wrestler loses most of his games, the final scene), a quirky (sorry I can't think of a better word) sense of humour. It is not American at all - although Black plays an Anglo he's a totally Mexican-ised one, complete with accent, and there are no other American characters or actors. Mexico looks authentically ugly and repressive. I enjoyed the fights, particularly the ones with the two midgets, the weird training montage, and also the fat orphan (how directors love to cast fat kids but I guess it works). I have to admit I would have liked it had it been a bit more Hollywood.

Moview review - "Man on Fire" (2003) ***

Tony Scott returns to Mexico for another Revenge type film about, well, revenge. Denzell Washington is a boozy former special ops soldier who becomes bodyguard for Dakota Fanning, then goes on to kick serious arse when she's kidnapped. The first half is bonding with Fanning, the second half is arse kicking. Tough guys, lots of smoking, interesting visuals, some nuns. Denzel isn't entirely well cast but Chris Walken and Mickey Rourke are in the support cast and they are spot on. 

There is always a worrying sort of aspect to these sort of films, with its superhuman hero who can bring down organised crime, but an undeniably appealing aspect to the myth as well. You know I didn't quite believe Denzel as an alkie (there's always something inherently decent about him as an actor). Tony Scott's flashy directing suits the story. I always find his films majorly flawed in some way but they always stick with me for along time afterwards. 

NB Apparently a romance sub plot between Denzel and Radha Mitchell was cut because audiences didn't like Denzel kissing a white woman - but I think the cut was a good one more on the grounds the real love story is between Denzel and Fanning, and throwing mom into the mix confuses it.