Movie review - "Journey into Fear" (1943) (rewatching) ***1/2

 I read an interview with the author of a book on the production of this movie, so decided to re-watch it. Norman Foster directed as opposed to Orson Welles but it is full of Welles touches like the magic show and it is a Mercury Production.

Laurence Olivier did this on radio in 1946.  It was also filmed for TV in 1956. Ben Hecht did the original script.

It's a lot of fun. Everyone's trying to kill Joseph Cotten. Cotten is a whimp. Welles hams it up. Dolores del Rio is enjoyable. Jack Moss is great. It's not a masterpiece but has some nice style.

Movie review - "The Extraordinary Seaman" (1969) *

 MGM took some big swings in the late 1960s - sometimes it hit, other occasions missed, this being a case in point, a film that brought John Frankenheimer's hot streak to an end - he never really got it back.

Four lost American seamen (including a young Alan Alda) come across a disgraced British naval officer (David Niven) trying to redeem the family honour.

It's set in the Philippines but was shot in Mexico. Faye Dunaway is a local woman who owned a garage and fires a gun which I think is supposed to be Frankenheimer being progressive.

These sort of anti war comedies are hard to do. Frankenheimer can't do it. The film was shot in 1967 and not released for two years.

May as well have been a TV play. It's only 80 minutes and feels padded. Intercutting with documentary footage is annoying. The whole movie is annoying. The music score. David Niven always drinking. The antics. 

This movie sucked. 

Movie review - "The Train" (1964) ***1/2

 Burt Lancaster called in John Frankenheimer to replace Charles Crichton on Birdman of Alcatraz and did something similar after he booted Arthur Penn from this movie. It's has a fabulous concept - the Germans are trying to take French art works from Paris as the Allies approach and the French resistance is trying to stop them. Burt Lancaster is the leader of the French.

It's smart. Looks great in black and white. Long. As French as it can be. Lancaster strong star, Paul Scofield ideal. I would've liked more of a character relationship with Lancaster and someone. I know that was tricky. 

Movie review - "The Thin Red Line" (1964) **

 Good on Yordan for trying to make an elevated war picture but despite the source material this feels like an episode of Combat with a lot of gun play and two actors snarling. Jack Warden is fine as the sergeant, Keir Dullea is bland as the innocent, but no one is up to it, not really. Director Andrew Marton found the limit of his ability.

It's a hard book to adapt to be fair. There's the odd good bit like the wounded soldier crying out. But I think this needed to be made a few years later to go down the violent gorry route it clearly wants to. 

There's a flashback of Dullea and his wife in lingere so Yordan could give his wife a part!

Shot in Spain. 

Movie review - "To Be Or Not to Be" (1942) *****

 What a wonderful film. Such an immaculate script, beautifully structured. Perfectly cast - Jack Benny is so winning, and hammy, and human, and fun; Carole Lombard is seductive, and smart, and warm, and narcisstic and brave. The plot is logical and clever, there are twists and turns, the Nazis are dumb and smart, the victories are hard worn.

I love the depiction of the Lomard-Benny marriage - she's always flirting perhaps more with others but doesn't want to leave her husband (and she doesn't change her ways even at the end). Robert Stack is engaging as the flier who loves her. 

What a great last credit for Lombard. What a triumph for Benny and Lubitsch and everyone.

I had a soft spot for the Mel Brooks remake but this is perfect. 

Movie review - "Ensign Pulver" (1964) **

 Joshua Logan sooked a lot about the film version of Mister Roberts but got a chance to make his own version, this sequel without Roberts who died in the original. He assembled some promising names but stuffed up with Robert Walker Jnr in the lead, a gawky Jim Hutton type who isn't up to Jack Lemmon. Burl Ives seems too fat and old and not scary for a captain.

The story is dumb. Burl Ives bullies, Walker wants to be a doctor (boring), Tommy Sands' child dies so he goes a little mad, there's an interlude on an island with Millie Perkins as a nurse, Ives and Walker are on a raft. The story misses Mister Roberts but it's also not good. I did like Ives realising he's not fit for command, that's a bit different.

It's interesting to see people like Jack Nicholson, Larry Hagman and James Coco as sailors.  Walter Matthau is strong as the doctor. Pretty photography.

But the film was just annoying. Walker too. 

Movie review - "None But the Brave" (1965) ***

 Frank Sinatra's one movie as director is surprisingly gutsy - anti war, very sympathetic to the Japanese, long scenes of Japanese chatting. Some Japanese are stuck on an island - Americans crash. They fight then form a bond then fight. There's a lot of camraderie and men on opposite sides making eyes at each other.

Sinatra is in it but the biggest role goes to Clint Walker who is bland and solid. Tommy Sands is terrible - he made a choice to use a silly voice and it sinks his performance. The Japanese actors are strong. Nicely shot.

I don't think Sinatra was Charles Laughton but this impressed me. 

Movie review - "The Guilt of Janet Ames" (1947) *1/2

 A film with its head up its arse. Starts alright - Rosalind Russell walks in front of a car, we wonder why, boozy journo Melvyn Douglas investigates in part because he knew her dead husband, she's got PTSD from death of her husband, she resents the survivors.

But then - ugh - Douglas asks her a bunch of questions and we go into dream sequences of meeting the people whose life her dead husband saved. They include newcomer Betsy Blair wife of some dull soldier, and Sid Caesar who does an unfunny though energetic seven minute comic routine. 

Psychology dramas work best when there's some secret and/or social point ef Suddenly Last Summer, Home of the Brave. This is just bad.

Problematic shoot Producer writer Virgina Van Upp clashed with Charles Vidor and quit, Vidor quit. 

This film was inept. 

Movie review - "Sergreant Mike" (1944) **

 Should have been a slam dunk - army story about soldier Larry Parks assigned to train a dog, romacing a widow who has a cute kid. It's alright but there's not nearly enough dog stuff - we want more scenes of their relationship.. The scene with Parks and the kid goes on way too long. There's too much war stuff.

The copy I saw was murky too which didn't help and may have influenced me.  Henry Levin's second film as a director.

Movie review - "Lisa" (1962) ** aka "The Inspector"

 A story of promise - a Dutch police officer helps a Jewish woman into Palestine, despite thinking she could be guilty of murder of a Nazi. Very strong support cast - Donald Pleasance, Leo McKern, Marius Goring - and B list stars: Stephen Boyd and Dolores Hart. They are pretty and try but aren't proper stars of say a Gregory Peck and Natalie Wood.

Tired. Hopping off and on barges. No stakes. Like the Nazi is killed. He deserved to die. Accidental edath. Who cares if she gets to Palestine or if they get caught or the couple can't make it?

The film doesn't work. 

Hart has some nice moments. But I don't thinkshe was a real star. Boyd wasn't. 

Movie review - "Wild Geese II" (1985) * (warning: spoilers)

 What happened on this movie? Did they not understand what made the first work?

The first had really interesting characters - doomed men, with no future, looking for a cause, men out of shape.

This is mostly about Scott Glenn as a gloomy mercenary from Lebannon. Edward Fox plays Richard Burton's brother from the first one. Why didn't they use someone with a bit more life? Like Oliver Reed, Peter O'Toole? Maybe they tried. Fox is just pompous. 

There's a throwback to the first film in a training montage. But it's super short. Then a training sergeant yells at a former IRA man then just kills him. Whose dumb idea was that?

The story feels so repetitive. Scott Glenn gets hauled into a car. Then Barbara Carrera. Then Glenn again. 

Why didn't they lean into them being mercenaries?  

Random plots like Carrera and Glenn falling in love, and a network paying for it, and Carrera's brother helping, and there's a double agent (actually that's not bad), and the Russian foisting an IRA man on them, and the IRA giving Fox LSD. And it ends with Hess (Laurence Olivier) deciding to go back. 

No stakes - no reason to bust him out. 

Just shit. 

Interesting to see Laurence Olivier as if he's going to die, Ingrid Pitt as a hooker working for the Russians and Patruck Stewart. Nice views of Germany. 

Movie review - "Swing Shift" (1984) **

I've got a theory that movies that are endlessly cut and recut have a basic story flaw. That's my take on this one where Jonathan Demme was famously sacked by Goldie Hawn.

It's got a great idea - women working in World War Two. Solid feminism - women working for the first time, being liberated financially and sexually. 

But it's dragged down by being so fair and nice. Ed Harris is nice. Hawn's life before the war is quite pleasant. He joins up.

Kurt Russell wants Goldie. He asks her out a bunch of times which makes him an arsehole.  I didn't like him and I didn't like her. Then he shags Christine Lahti and I didn't like them.

The problems are so easy to be fixed. Just make Hawn's husband horrible. Have her be liberated by the war. Discover the joys of decent sex, money, working. Private Benjamin did it better. 

The movie also is annoyingly expensive - huge sets, factories, ballrooms, extras. Not needed.

It's fun to see people like Holly Hunter, Roger Corman, Stephen Tobolowsy. But the film doesn't work. It's not enjoyable.

In fairness, the film was heavily rewritten and changed from what Demme intended - see here. But I'm not sure even with those changes it would have worked.

Book revue - "Future Indefinite" by Noel Coward

 Coward's adventures in the war makes compelling reason in part because he simply went so many places - Poland, Russia, Finland and Norway before the war, Paris after it started, Australia.

Movie review - "Patton" (1970) ****

 A movie that managed to unite hawks and doves with its blood and guts hero - isn't he great vs isn't it awful. Some terrific fresh bits like the opening with Patton talking to troops in front of the flag. Others are more conventional such as people going "tell me about Patton" and Germans giving exposition. Karl Malden's Bradley is dull.

There are fresh things, or at least fresh at the time - the more realistic depiction of how battles were fought in World War Two.

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 - "In Harm's Way" (1965) ***

 Big Otto Preminger movie which has mini series vibes but star power to carry it - John Wayne and Kirk Douglas up top, Burgess Meredith and Patricia Neal to the side. Brandon de Wilde isn't up to playing Wayne's son but I like that Neal is age-ish approprate for Wayne.

The movie is enjoyably adult and that women are given prominent roles. Gorgeous black and white photography and production values.

Franchot Tone looks as though he's about to drop dead. The whole subplot of Tom Tryon and Paula Prentiss could be cut out. The scene where Douglas decides to rape Jill Haworth is very powerful. Douglas is given a heroic death. Stuff him. Haworth is likeable, Neal very good.

Feels like a movie that could've been trimmed down - it didn't have to run this long. Annoying Stanley Holloway plays an Aussie coastwatcher. I guess he was coming off My Fair Lady.

I enjoyed this. Tells a story, looks great, war, sex, movie stars. 

 

Movie review - "The Night We Dropped.a Clanger" (1959) **

 Spoof of I was Monty's Double even has Clifton James cameo as himself. It stars Brian Rix in a double role - he did a lot of stage plays. His magic escapes cinema. The movie's determination for laughs did eventually win me over and the film got better when the stakes were life and death.

Movie review - "Desert Mice" (1959) **

 This sounds like it will be fun - the story of ENSA, who performed to the army during the war - but it misses the mark. The cast irritated me, the jokes died, it lacked atmosphere and love of performers. Michael Relph wasn't a good director (Basil Dearden produced this one).  Sid James adds some spark but people like Alfred Marks are annoying. 

Maybe if you know and like the comedies you'll enjoy this. It just felt wasted on these actors.

Thing pick up at the end, like the last 20 minutes, when the team encounter Germans under Marius Goring and there's a funny subplot about James trying to get the rights to Lili Marelene. Too little too late. 

Movie review - "Carve Her Name with Pride" (1958) ****

 Excellent war movie which takes its time but is so moving because of the bravery of its real people and sadness of the ending. Lewis Gilbert later said Diana Dors would've been mre suitable and that would've been a career adjusting role for Dors but Virginia McKenna is very good, especially in the last act. The material is strong.

Paul Scofield makes a splendid impact as her officer who loves her - I think this part is fictitious. 

Movie review - "The Square Peg" (1958) ***

 Regarded as one of the best Norman Wisdom films. He's less weak and pathetic in this more a working class cocky boy and also a German general. Quite fun, just felt long. Honor Blackman is the girl.