Yes, I am aware when it comes to Yordan it's often unclear who did what but anyway...
1) The Big Combo (1955)
2) Men in War (1957)
3) When Strangers Marry (1944)
4) El Cid (1961)
5) Johnny Guitar (1954)
6) The Naked Jungle (1954)
7) The Chase (1946)
8) The Harder They Fall (1956)
9) Joe Macbeth (1955)
10) Reign of Terror (1949)
These were all good scripts. Yordan had a strong track record.
Yordan's hit stage play isn't that much but was a sensation in its day. He wrote it about a Polish American family it was changed to be about a black one - this "reads black", changes were presumably made by the director and cast though I'm not sure what.
Plot fairly simple - dodgy family discovers a cashed up hayseed is coming to town so they decide to marry him too to the estranged trashy Anna, a prodigal daughter hanging out in a bar and flirting with sailors.
I've seen two film versions of the play before reading this - both faihtful. You could see it working with strong actors, and a sexually charged Anna especially the scenes with her and the hayseed. (Sidney Poitier played that part on the road he would've been perfect.)
Key events happen off stage like the death of Anna's dad (who doesn't have a big part) and Anna reuniting with the hayseed. Odd. Could be adapted less faithfully. Could be musicalised.
A curio. Plot inspired by Anna Christie.
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.
Starts off interestingly - the son of Martin Sheen, growing up in Malibu, hanging out with the Penns (Chris more than Sean), being on set in Philippines for Apocalypse Now, discovering paid sex on the streets of Santa Monica (!), a rapid rise to acting work - a part in Grizzly 2 (which meant he had to turn down the lead in Karate Kid), a strong experience on Red Dawn and Ferris Bueller then the casting in Platoon. After that the book wobbles with Sheen whining incessantly about his work on Wall Street then it goes into free fall with tales of drugs, and women, and rants. Sheen comes across as a completely unpleasant person - a narcissist like so many junkies who brags about all the drugs they took and interventions they've had and wagons they've fallen of, who dribbles away about his suffering. He clearly lives in a world with too many jesters and has little respect for his craft of acting. He's constantly disparaging the films he appears in - ego trips, badly written, etc - though he has some nice words for the writers and co stars of Spin City and Two and a Half Men. He owns some of his mistakes but only some and basically just dribbles.
Despite the people he's worked with some character sketches come through - Johnny Depp trying to seduce him into smoking on Platoon, Oliver Stone's tension trying to make the movies, Chris Penn, his parents. But so many people are vaguely drawn incuding his own brother. The book also assumes the reader knows about many of the incidents - maybe that's true for a typical reader but some context wouldn't go astray. Also the spelling of "dood" and "fukken" gets wearying. Like Sheen and this book.
Excellent, tight little lost patrol movie set in the Korean War - Robert Ryan leads what's left of his men, crossing with Aldo Ray and a shell shocked colonel (Robert Keith). Anthony Mann is on tip top form. Stripped back story which nonetheless has some decent character stuff.
The left wing leanings of producer Sidney Harmon and Ryan are on show, I believe, in things such as the dehumanisation of war (soldiers freak out, run away and step on mines) and the presence of a black soldier (James Edwards).
Tight, solid, stripped back, etc etc.
Better than the 1949 version - more interesting with black actors and the overall quality of performance is stronger. Eartha Kitt has charisma and Sammy Davis Jnr is excellent as is Rex Ingram. It still isn't much of a play.
There's a little dancing and singing and you wish it had been a proper musical - less dialogue, characters expressing themselves through song. Still stagey, not that well directed.
Chat, chat, chat. Peter Schaffer's stage play about Spaniards and Incas as a hit - a literate look at colonialism with some impressive staging. I can see the thought process - "well take this and add scenery and it'll be a literate blockbuster".
Maybe. Some people will like it. but it's a lot of talk. Christopher Plummer is the Inca king in make up. Robert Shaw has grey in his hair.
Some effective moments - a battle sequence in slo mo with flameno, the death of Plummer.
Too much chat especially about God. There's a third act lecture from a priest, in common with many Phil Yordan scripts.
