Movie review - Maisie#3 - "Gold Rush Maisie" (1940) **

 Maisie gets dropped into a not terribly interesting world - a ghost town in Arizona. Maybe if crooks/spies had been there but it's just grumpy Lee Bowman, another imitation Clark Gable.

The most fascinating thing about it is the presence of some dust bowl refugees courtesy of the lefty screenwriters.  But the movie lacks pace - and villains. There's no love triangle for her to bust up or even romantic rival. She's not even into Bowman going off on her own at the end - which is feminist but feels unsatisfactory.

Maisie digging for gold, literally, should have been fun - colourful characters, conmen, thieves, rogues. But there's none of that just grump Bowman and these perfect peasants. The girl who sang in the cafe instead of her should've been a rival. It needed a murder. Dull.

Book review - "Congo" by Michael Crichton (1980)

 Fast paced, exciting, silly: talking gorillas, killer gorillas, great stuff. There's a mercenary role for Sean Connery, a hard tough talking woman, a nerdy guy, some porters to be killed. Plenty of science gobbledygook. Entertaining.

Movie review - Maisie#2 - "Congo Maisie" (1940) ***

 Even closer to Red Dust and lots of fun, albeit racially sensitive as you'd expect. Maisie gets stuck in the Congo, stumbles upon another love triangle - John Carroll (imitating Clark Gable but ont bad) is a swashbuckling rubber man/doctor who falls for Rita Johnson (who had a colourful private life IRL) despite being married to Shepperd Strudwick.

Maisie runs around after Carroll, ordering people around, being moral despite her white trash background. She quells an uprising by singing a song, which is funny, although racist. 

Full of high spirits. 

Movie review - "The Andromeda Strain" (1971) **1/2

 Starts brilliantly with tremendous design and style. Don't mind lack of stars. Making one of the scientistists a woman was a good move especially as she has a sense of humour. But then it bogs down in chat - it's too faithful. Staring at screens. Chat, chat, chat. 

Terrific last twenty minutes. But the film is over two hours. I felt sorry for that baby crying all the time.

I wonder if this movie is why Sphere the film was so faithful - "well The Andromeda Strain did it and that worked well." 

Movie review - "Maisie" (1939) **1/2

 Curious to see this as it sounds so fun - the adventures of showgirl Maisie (Ann Sothern). Striking in that it was so influenced by Red Dust - Maisie gets stranded somewhere exotic (here, a Western ranch), falls in love with hunky foreman (Robert Young) gets involved in a love triangle involving a married woman who is cheating on her nice husband. Only here the woman is cheating with another person not Maisie's love interest - Hays Code!

Clearly meant to be a Jean Harlow film. Sothern is fine. Young fine not terribly macho. Ian Hunter is the wet cuckold. 

There is a murder and a trial. Strong female lead - female screenwriter.  

 

Movie review - "Rising Sun" (1993) **

 Stylishly directed by Phil Kaufman, who likes a bit of female nudity in a good cause and that's on display here. Michael Crichton didn't like the changes Kaufman made to his book - I haven't read it for a while. It's a whatever mystery with some nudity and 90s silliness (Wesley Snipes shakes Japanese by escaping to the hood).

Snipes and Sean Connery bring a lot of star power. Ray Wise is entertainingly sleazy and Tia Carrere is sweet. Kevin Anderon's bouffy hair is entertaining. Cary Tagawa is always reliable.

The mystery isn't very involving. The stuff on the Japanese take over of the economy has been stripped so there's not much point. The film got dumber as it went on. It was as though Kaufman was a little too cool for school adapting this. 

I didn't really like it. Connery and Snipes are both genuine stars though. That helps. 

Book review - "Eaters of the Dead" by Michael Crichton (1976)

 Brief, tight, fascinating, clever. I wonder if influenced by Flashman. Not good at action. Strong on atmosphere. A lot of raping. The vikings can get rooted really.

Easy to see how to adapt - make more of the characters of the Arab and a few Vikings, use the kingdom political subplot, have some women. These weren't done.