So-so Eastern despite the presence of talented people like Donald O'Connor and Mario Bava doing second unit. Henry Levin can make good movies but his output is variable. This isn't one of his better movie.
There is colour (though my copy was murky), lots of dubbing. Lacks energy. Story confusing. O'Connor tries and dances once or twice. There's some torture, dancing girls, dungeons, flying carpet. But never comes alive.
During filming there were riots where people died.
An attempt by Rod Taylor to make something different, a mid life crisis story about a man whose wife won't put out but the wife (Carol White) of his best friend will. Phew. Not a good movie at any stage. I did like the stuff between Rod and his dad. Absurd ending with person being killed by toilets. Carol White, who needed special handling, doesn't work. Rod over-acts.
Just put it on for mood and atmosphere and location - it looks so splendid, with that great score, likeable cast. Runs smoothly. Fun to try and spot the reshoots which are quite well integrated. Ending is a little damp squip with randoms in a church and Adrienne Barbeau on top of light house but still worth watching.
Watched a doco on the making of it after - Janet Leigh seems to have cancer, and sad to see Debra Hill looking so smart and healthy knowing she wouldn't live very long.
Flying High was a seminal film in my life. I hadn't given that much thought to how it was made but I'm glad I read this book. Some cool stuff:
* ZAZ made a living out of showbusiness quite quickly with their stage show - they put in a lot of work but it paid off for them quite quickly: the power of three people working for a common cause
* there was another key guy in the group who quit because they wouldn't let his girlfriend join
* it was still really really hard to raise finance for this despite Kentucky Fried Movie and hard to raise money for that
*they pay tribute to John Landis while also admitting there were lots of stuff they would've done differently on Kentucky Fried
* major studios didn't want to make it but minors did - Robert Rehme (an under appreciated head of production) wanted it for Avco Embassy but they had finance issues and AIP wanted it but then head of production Jere Henshaw wanted comedians not TV stars and ZAZ were willing to walk so good on them
*Paramount behaved magnificently, it sounds - I know this is looking back at at a hit, but they did everything right: tested ZAZ but also backed them, assigned them a pro script editor who got to work on the screenplay (ensuring the love story remained solid), assigned them a pro producer who got it to work on the film (Howard Koch)... the crucial things was those executives "got" it... Michael Eisner also insisted in colour so it covered 70s disaster films. All these decisions were spot on.
*They pitched a sequel Airplane Meets the Godfather which Hayes visits Hegart's family and they're the mafia. That would've been fun.
There is a lot of love for Steven Stucker, whom the gang attribute much of the stage show's success to. Also affectionate comments about Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges etc and appreciation for Hegarty and Hayes. I would've liked to have heard more about Lorna Patterson. No one talks about her much and she added a lot to the film.
There are quotes from famous people of today like Bill Hader about how much the movie means to them. I get why it's there ("you gotta get the kids") but it is annoying especially as they are the usual suspects (Judd Apatow, Adam Mackay, Maya Rudolph). Also Tim Allen almost wrecked the book for me with his stupid "couldn't say that now God I miss comedy" schtick.
Put this on again just for fun. My opinion doesn't change. Terrific. Clever, Stylish. Nullabor filming worth it. Boat smash not worth it. Well acted. Needed some line to cover the fact that two Americans meet in the desert.
Dodgy last act. Problem easily fixable. They should have had the police arrest Keach, That's when everyone turns up - Shirley Cameron, etc - saying he's bad. Police are going to haul him away. He insists they go after Jamie Lee Curtis. Don't listen. He escapes and goes after them.
Felt like watching again just for the mood - the photography, location, John Houseman, Adrienne Barbeau. music, acting. These keep you watching. Killing the old baby sitter adds to the dread. Janet Leigh loses a husband - so the stakes are hevay. I read my old review of this my opinons haven't changed on the film.
One of the last of the New York set sex comedies - though they continued a little longer on Broadway, I think, where you could be more risque. It has a decent central idea with plenty of potential - four businessmen who commute to Manhattan from Greenwich decide to pool resources and get a bachelor pad, and come into contact with Kim Novak, a sociology student who is studying them.
The movie has gloss, Michael Gordon directing, some star power, including Tony Randall who plays it the right tone. I'm not sure the stars are right - James Garner and Kim Novak channelling Rock Hudson and Doris Day, I guess. Garner, as someone noted, always makes films feel like TV. He doesn't have the affability of Hudson or Jack Lemmon. Novak is beautiful and has that "quality" but the role needed someone with more spark like Marilyn, Natalie Wood, Doris Day.
Howard Duff and that other guy aren't really funny. I think they wanted Gig Young for Duff's part - he would've been better (so might Jim Backus who has a small role). The wives, who include Patti Paige, are colourless. I had trouble telling the married guys apart - that's a basic error. They don't play different types of roles. The annoying boomer kids made me laugh.
Billy Wilder would've gone for it, and Sidney Sheldon or Norman Krasna could've made it funny. But it never seems sure of its tone. Once you know Garner is a divorcee you know he will wind up with Novak - and the script never seems to know how sleazy to make him (he has no love life, he's boringly reluctant to go along with the plan()
You know what would've been better? Had Garner been a player - all the others were jealous of him. They want to imitate his life. He falls for her.
The ending farcical situations when all the wives collide with the husbands feels sluggish and dull because you can't tell them apart.
This would be worth remaking.
Entertaining memoir from Feldman, who had a strong Hollywood career, including Peter Weir's Witness. We hear of triumphs like that as well as humour detours making Hot Dog the Movie.
Some great stories: Michael Ritchie being lazy on The Golden Child, Alex Segal being fired from a TV movie for abusing the mothers of child actors, dealing with the ego of Joe Levine (who he had to publicise as much as Embassy's films), Mervyn Le Roy did uncredited directing on The Green Berets,
Feldman talks a lot about Aussies Peter Weir and Mel Gibson, though not so much about others he worked with - Louis Nowra on K19 for instance. There's a chapter on Ray Stark and one on Levine.
A Rankin Bass production, an anthology of the stories of Hans Christian Anderson. It actually tells the story of Anderson as a teen, jumping into dream/fantasy sequences comprised of stop action animation.
It's quite charming though has a choppy quality. There's a lot of unconvincing dubbed singing voices. The cast is interesting - voices are done by actors including Burl Ives, Hayley Mills (the Little mermaid), Boris Karloff and Tallulah Bankhead.
There's live action appearances from Ray Bolger, Margaret Hamilton, Jack Gilford (as Anderson's dad - you'll recognise the face), Ed Wynn.
I liked this when young but it means more to revisit in later years once you've you had more experience in relationships. So much was all too familiar, either personal or observed - young men chatting about what they can "get" out of women, passing various obstacles to get what they want, putting women on pedestals or treating them purely as sex objects, the hatred Jack Nicholson's character has for women, the rationalised abuse, in a way.
Some of this was electrically good - the fight between Nicholson and Ann Margret, the dialogues between Nicholson and Art Garfunkle.
The film is a triumph of casting, acting and directing (not that the other bits aren't good too). Jack Nicholson became a great but remember he was relatively new to stardom. Art Garfunkle, who is excellent as the passive, timid Sandy, was known as a singer (and remains mostly known as a singer). Candice Bergen and Ann Margret were both regarded as jokes; both are superb particularly Ann Margret in the more spectacular part, yelling, flashing her breasts, committing suicide and so on. Bergen's part is more tricky because you keep wondering why's she with Garfunkle and Nicholson. The Cynthia O'Neal part is maybe a little sketchy - she's with Garfunkle but wouldn't mind a shag with Nicholson and is mean about Ann Margret.
Mike Nichols' direction is perfect - clinical and full of insight. The original script is here. You can tell it was envisioned as a play - it's mostly two handers - but it has been rendered cinematically.
At times watching this I wondered how influential it had been for Woody Allen films. Allen always goes on about Bob Hope, Bergman and Fellini, but this felt like later Woody Allen - Husbands and Wives but also things like Annie Hall; even the music score with tracks like Mood Indigo was familiar.
Roger Smith and Alan Carr revived the career of Smith's wife Ann-Margret with some shows in Las Vegas and TV specials. They then decided to go back into films, but were "choosy" turning down The Maltese Bippy and Song of Norway to do... RPM and this. (Then, to be fair, came Carnal Knowledge.)
Smith wrote the story and screenplay so one presumes he wanted to put his wife forward but actually this is more a star vehicle for whoever plays CC - and that's Joe Namath, the football star. This film might thus be of interest to people who remember him as a football personality - doesn't mean as much to Australians.
It's not a great role for Ann Margret - I guess she gets to wear different outfits but she's very much The Girl. In her opening scene she is almost raped by some biker friends of Namath (including the ever reliable Sid Haig) then Namath rescues her and she flirts with him as if nothing happened. Then later on she gets kidnapped (by bikers led by the even more reliable William Smith) and has to be rescued. Oh there's a romantic interlude.
Nothing wrong with putting Ann Margaret in a biker movie - it's a commercial genre and Ann Margret could ride a bike. Why not make something with her as a biker? Get her racing, doing stuff. Make her active. Have her do more dancing, more singing... show off your wife, Roger Smith!
This film was so boring.
Fabulous book. Definitive. Nichols was a major player - this book captures it. The background, the upbringing, the college years (he could be mean - not surprised), comedy with Elaine May, straight acting, adventures as a director, early films, incredible success, great disappointment, exotic love life, terrible fathering (at first... he got better), finding his groove as a film director again, compulsive spending, addictions to drugs at a late age.
I was familiar with a lot of the hits - The Graduate, Virginia Woolf - but it was great to read about the disappointments - Day of the Dolphin, The Fortune, Fools. The theatre stuff is gripping. People seem to have really loved him. But he couldn't do everything as those who've seen The Fortune can attest.
A magnificent book.
Random thoughts:
- Kurt Russell is bad ass
- this is more a horror movie than an action - the action isn't that well done, but the world is spooky
- superb cast - especially the small roles like Charles Cypher
- they shouldn't redo this as a movie but as a TV show because the world is so rich.
