Movie review - "Piccadilly Third Stop" (1960) **1/2

 Not bad heist film helped by some excellent actors and the novelty of Yoko Tani as a female lead. Dennis Price great fun as a casino over I wish his part had been bigger, same for Mai Zetterlin. Terence Morgan is fun as a cad. Lot of heist films made around this time.

Movie review - "League of Gentlemen" (1960) ***

 The first effort from Allied Film Makers - it has a splendid central idea, and Jack Hawkins having fun. A bit smug in places as Bryan Forbes scripts could be, but has a heist locomotive. Closest relationship was between Hawkins and Nigel Patrick. Lots of interesting people in it like Richard Attenborough, Keiron Moore. A little more sexy - Nanette Newman in a. bath.

Movie review - "Make Mine Mink" (1960) **1/2

 Bright comedy which like so many British comedies from this era is about some thieves - Terry Thomas and some old ladies. It's based on a play and feels like that at first but gets better once it's up and running.

Movie review - "Too Many Crooks" (1959) **1/2

 Mario Zampi comedy has a decent central idea used for Ruthless People has some interesting actors like Terry Thomas and Sid James but lacks zip. George Cole tries to be Peter Sellers. Brenda de Bazie is fun as the wife. Decently plotted just not that fun for me. Maybe needed to be in colour.

Movie review - "The Deep" (1977) **1/2 (re-watching)

 My memories of seeing it as a kid remain. Jacqueline Bisset in the shirt. The voodoo torture. The cricket match. The brutal murder of a friend. Spooky underwater stuff.

Lacks interesting characters. The actors are there but couldn't they have more to play. Couldn't they have given Jacqueline Bisset something to do? All she does is get attacked, look great when damp, and make a suggestion about a woman in ancient times.

Really Robert Shaw's character should have been killed before act three like he was in Jaws.

Lovely music. Great locations.

Documentary review - "The Self-Preservation Society" (2009) ***

 Solid doco about making The Italian Job  with some great talking heads: Michael Deeley, Michael Caine, Robert Evans, Peter Bart (who never passes up a chance to self  promote), Peter Collinson's widow and kids. The Collinson story is inevitably moving.  Lots of details about cars. Fun clips. Good natured.

Movie review - "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" (1974) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

 Michael Cimino got his directing career going with this buddy comedy, a genre much in vogue at the time. Cimino's commercials background means he knows how to fill a frame and compose an image. It ambles a bit in that Malpaso way. I was surprised how low fi it was (essentially a two hander which morphs into a four hander with a big heist sequence in act two). Also how homoerotic it was - Jeff Bridges is clearly in love with Clint Eastwood who is into Bridges; there is talk of women and they pick some up (including Catherine Bach) but it feels forced.

Interesting to see Bridges in drag after reading what came out about Cimino but that just may be accidental. Neat touches and twists like how George Kennedy dies. I'm guessing Midnight Cowboy was an influence.

Movie review - "Circus of Fear" (1966) **1/2

 Stars off as a heisty movie then becomes about a serial killer at the circus. One of many films round this time based on an Edgar Wallace story.

The last is heaps of fun - Klaus Kinski, Victor Maddern as crooks, Leo Genn as a cop, Suzy Kendall and Christopher Lee as circus folk.  Never quite as much fun as I want it to be. Attractive women and circus stuff great like the mean little person just not enough of it. I got bored.

Movie review - "The Nugget" (2002) **1/2

 One of the several flops from the Macquarie Film Group though the idea is strong and the cast excellent - Eric Bana, Dave O'Neill and Stephen Curry discover a nugget on the weekend and wonder what to do with it. But they might have checked that Bill Bennett struggles to make commercial films. His strengths are authenticity and when motived by outrage at something. I'm not sure he has a sense of humour, or much of one.

Every now and then this slipped into a groove, of being a fable, and seemed to work. I like the last third.

The cast is very Melbourne - in addition to the stars there's Peter Moon and Vince Colosimo.

I think Bennett missed a beat not having a romance - everyone is partnered up. Someone should have fallen in love.

Mudgee looks very pretty and there is affection for country people not often found in Australian films which are traditionally classist. I can see why this didn't do well at the box office but can also see why it's lingered after - it goes down easy, has charm.

Movie review - "One More Train to Rob" (1971) **

 This actually has a decent story - train robber George Peppard seeks revenge on the man who betrayed him (John Vernon) and married his girl, and in doing so winds up helping some Chinese. It's done in with a combination of Andrew McLaglen's flabby direction and that bland Universal treatment - bright colours, backlot sets, sting music.

Peppard loved the character he played - a rascally train robber. I get why but he's a little too low energy. peppard was at his best playing straight men surrounded by rascals.

Peppard doesn't bounce off anyone. John Vernon has an Irish accent that comes and goes. The Chinese angle is sort of French but no real characters - noble prostitute (Frances Nuyen, who is at least allowed to live instead of die tragically), noble son, noble old man.

This needed to be more fun. Peppard thought it was fun and it was fun for him, I'm sure, more than his usual characters. But it isn't fun. I'd dump the boring Chinese couple. Have all the Chinese women and they all want to sleep with Peppard. Have one Chinese turn traitor. Have more colourful other characters.

Larry Cohen once said Andrew Mclaglen and Burt Kennedy killed the Western in the 1970s with their dud movies and this is definitely an argument in favour of Cohen.

I think this was the last of his five picture Universal contract - Tobruk being outside that.

Movie review - "One Way Wahine" (1965) *1/2

 More obscure beach party movie despite starring Joy Harmon, Anthony Eisley and Edgar Bergen. Harmon has this weird red tan and seems to be mentally off. Combieds some bech stuff with a robbery plot. Filmed on location but it stil looks cheap and studio bound. I am a soft marker on beach films but the indeptness of this got me down. Bergen's role is very small.

Movie review - "Gaolbreak" (1962) **

 One of the last leading roles from Peter Reynolds who is top billed. You'll recognise some of the other cast including Carol White. 

Reynolds is part of a crime family. They're planning a job. They have to bust a brother out of prison even though he's not that keen to do it being with Carol White.

Reynolds lacks a little of his old humour and was looking puffy but he holds the screen I love that mum was part of the gang.

It's not bad. Feels like an ep of a TV series really but done with some pace.

Movie review - "Harry in Your Pocket" (1973) **

 James Coburn stars in another film from a first time director, Bruce Geller - who worked on Mission Impossible and I think the writers worked on that show. It has a TV movie feel, lots of brown, Lalo Schifrin music. Coburn is a pickpocket working with veteran Walter Pigeon, they hook up with two newbies Michael Sarrazin and Trish Van Dere.

Sarrazin should have been Coburn's brother or son - would've given it more emotional kick. The slang about pick pocketing is interesting but not that interesting.

It's nice that Pigeon had a juicy role - old thief who snorts coke - but watching it I couldn't help think "a lot of other old stars would've been better in this like Bette Davis or someone".

The film doesn't work. It doesn't lean into its love triangle until too late. There's no enough history between Coburn and Sarrazin. More needed to be made of their rivalry.

Or else the film could've been a three girls movie.

Pickpockets arent that interesting. A lot of bumping into people.

Movie review - "Dead Heat on a Merry Go Round" (1966) **

 One of those films inspired by Charade - all groovy, with twists. It's a bit annoying. A lot rests on the shoulders of James Coburn, who gets out of prison and plans a heist. Thing is it takes half the film for him to raise money for the heist, which involves him romancing people - the shrink to get him out of prison, a maid (Nina Grey who is terrible), a socialite (Rose Marie) another cleaner (Camilla Sparv). Most of these actresses are gorgeous and dressed gorgeously but they're swept off their feet by Coburn - who is attractive but not that hot. Even Cary Grant would struggle to have sold it. But it's all so patchy and stop start.

Coburn also imitates various people including an Australian cop! (He was an Aussie in The Great Escape.)

The film gets much better once the heist kicks in and there's some pace.

It looks terrific in that late 60s way. Harrison Ford pops up to deliver a telegram. I struggled to tell the male support cast apart.

Movie review - "Duffy" (1968) ** (warning: spoilers)

 This movie has a good central idea-  some spoilt kids (James Fox, John Alderton) of a rich man (James Mason) decide to rob dad, and hire a tough American (James Coburn), who winds up sleeping with the girl (Susannah York) of one of them.

It has gorgeous photography, neat  location work, fab costumes, and is very groovy. It's all played for comedy though. -I think that was a mistake. It needed to have real stakes - Mason should've been really dangerous, ditto Fox. People should've died.

Also I think there needed to be more difference between Coburn and the Brits. Fox is such a great decadent aristocrat, York an ideal smashing bird and Alderton a good idiot - Coburn should be this gruff, tough Yank but he's a hippy (looking handsome it has to be said).

There's a final twist where York is in cahoots with Mason but it's not much of a twist. Everyone needed a twist.

Movie review - "The Garfield Movie" (2024) ***

 Some strong plotting, funny jokes and an exciting sequence on a train at the end. It focuses a lot on Garfield and his dad, who sorry we don't really care about - John and Odie get sidelined - but it does give the film a core. All the main female roles are villainrs or winesome princesses which is a little odd in 2024.

Movie review - "El Condor" (1970) ***

 Larry Cohen nwas called in to rewrite this - he whinged about what was done to his script, as he often did, but although his script may have been better it's an enjoyable movie with Jim Brown and Lee Van Cleef as a left-field double act trying to get gold in Mexico with the help of Apaches.

Rousing music, impressive set, a surprising amount of nudity (there's a raid at night to kill soldiers in bed with prostitutes - most of them are naked), Marianna Hill is beautiful, Patrick O'Neal a worthy adversary, the Apache roles are underdone.

The rushed rewriting of the script is notable, and I got confused here and there.

But generally a decent late period Western.

Movie review - "Touch and Go" (1980) *

 I can see the appeal of the concept - women decide to team up and rob the rich fror charity - and while Peter Yeldham was a decent writer Peter Maxwell was an ordinary director and the budget too low when it needed glossy treatment.

Easy to spot the flaws - couldn't tell the lead characters apart, too many leads, no progression or dynamics in the relationsips, minimal conflict, no baddy. There's three main girls - Wendy Hughes, Chantal Contouri, Carmen Duncan - but then they throw in Barbara Stephens as a teacher, and Jeannie Drynan and Liddy Clarke and Christine Amor. Why?

Why not have one turn traitor or die or something?

Queensland doesn't even look pretty. It's crap.

Movie review - "Fast X" (2023) ***

 So... now Charlize Theron is good (or at least an ally), John Cena is good, Vin Diesel looks out of shape and bored, Michelle Rodgriguez looks bored, Ludacris and Tyrese look old, as does Sung Kang, Nathalie Emmanuel is... there, Jordana Brewster pops in. They have a return from Helen Mirren and Brie Larson comes along in as a bad ass female. Oh Scott Eastwood is in it briefly. Oh and Daniela Melchor is hot girl racer.

Film is saved and stolen by Jason Mamoa in a fabulously over the top, campy villain performance. It starts off slowly with too much Vin Diesel but gets better as it goes along. The film has a Mad Mad Mad Mad World quality about it with its sprawling cast, some funny lines and clever choreography. Total lack of realism.

It loses points fot being the first of a two parter. I think that hurt word of mouth.

Movie review - "Femme Fatale" (2002) *** (warning: spoilers)

 When in doubt, go a lower budgeted thriller - that worked for De Palma in the 70s, 80s and 90s but not so much this one although it has its fans. It's a fun film with De Palma dipping into his old bag of tricks - identical twins, kidnapping, heists with someone betraying, tracking shot.

Rebecca Romjin Stamos gets the part of a lifetime. She's gorgeous, more so in some outfits than others. Not quite a star but in her defence a lot of it she's not talking - when she gets to chat a bit like with Antonio Banderas, she comes alive, has more of a character to play.

 Banderas has fun as a paparazzo. Peter Coyote adds some American flavour as the American ambassador (maybe the film would've done better in the US with more American characters). The opening robbery is great. There's long scenes with no dialogue, Twists. Shift of perception.

The film is based on the fact that Stamos' dreams come true, I think. Which is silly. A lot of it is silly but it goes there. The pace flagged here and there but it was entertaining. It felt fulfilled.