Movie review - "The Adventures of Gerard" (1970) *

 Terrible movie. Arthur Conan Doyle's short stories are apparently quite fun and George MacDonald Fraser was a huge fan - it sounds as though they influenced Flashman. But this movie is stupid. I never got a sense of Gerard, Peter McEnerey was just... whatever in a moustache. Claudia Cardinale is beautiful and can have chemistry with anyone but she's not in it much.

Jack Hawkins is in it, ditto John Neville and Eli Wallach as Napoleon. I couldn't follow what was going on, I didn't care. This just annoyed me. 

Movie review - "The Tyrant Years" (1950) **

 Odd Sam Katzman movie. His films often fleeced through history and this was apparently once a tale of Captain Bligh then was fictionalised. It's about a tyrant in the British navy in 1803 - a captain, played by Rhys Williams, who I was vaguely familiar with, given a showy part. Williams isn't bad at all. The capain is basically turfed into retirement because he's brutal then brought back by Admiral Nelson (neat!) because he's brutal to go oon a special mission to wreck ships of the French. Ron Randell, in an awkward accent, is a lieutenant who falls for Williams' daughter.

The film is odd because Williams is a tyrant, an unfair tyrant - who abuses his crew, plays mind games... but the film never makes him a villain. He's victorious at the end, but wants to court martial Randell. Randell gets away with it because he's done his job. Then there's some cutesy stuff with Williams' wife who teases that they're going to have Randell as a son in law. This is played comically. But Wiliams has been shown to be a vicious commander, needlessly cruel. It feels as though the film might've been greatly rewritten. I could be wrong.

Not that much action except the battle at the end which is well done. It's in black and white not colour.

It's of interest mostly because of its ambiguous hero.

Book review - "Black Ajax" by George MacDonald Fraser

 Fraser was always excellent describing sports competitions - this is his one attempt, to my knowledge, to put that front and centre. It's a historical biography of a real boxer, Tom Molineaux, a black boxer in Napoleon-era England - Beau Brummel and the like. There were a number of real people who I don't know much about I assume it's accurate. Fraser throws in Flashman's dad.

It's an interesting story, especially if you don't know what's going to happen. The one thing I struggled with was the endless racist language Fraser has characters use to describe Tom - ape and so on. I mean he goes on and on. I know the argument would be "that's what people thought" but it's endless, also every character calls him a savage. With this and Joe from Flashman and the Angels of the Lord Fraser had thuggish brutal black people on the brain in the 1990s.

Aside from that it is skilful.

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

 Expensive, full of detail for the military nerd. The spectacle impresses. I actually felt this might've been better in a longer version - you would've gotten to know the characters more. Mistake I think to start with Napoleon abdicating - better to start with him coming from Elba. 

Rod Steiger hams it up as Napoleon. Hell, why not. Chris Plummer has dry fun as Wellington. They look at each other through glasses. We hear their thoughts - I've never liked that method.

Best bit apart from the spectacular stuff: death of Michael Wilding. That of Jack Hawkins would mean more if we'd gotten to know him. Dan O'Herily yells entertainingly as Ney. Ian Ogilvy gets quite a number of close ups.

Movie review - "Napoleon" (2023) **1/2

It's good where you would expect - the battle sequences: siege of Toulon, grapeshot, Austerlitz, Moscow, Waterloo, Pyramids. 

It's weak where you would expect as well - exposition being doled out, Napoleon and Josephine. 

The acting isn't great - Joaquin Phoenix is... fine, Vanessa Kirby does great pout but that's it, Rupert Everett seems all wrong as Wellington. I liked the guy who played Alexanda.

It looks terrific, the story is a littie monotonous, it focuses on the lead couple but doesnt give us much insight. 

The historical inaccuracies are fine. Sorry, that might be too dismissive of me for the nerds, but the film's other problems are more serious.

Movie review - "Eagle in a Cage" (1971) **1/2

 Napoleon on St Helena is an interesting coda to a fascinating life though you've got to jazz it up for drama because he did just hang around - proposed escape plans didn't happen. This has Napoleon root two women, Billie Whitelaw (an ex mistress) and also Georgia Hale (the real life Betsy which is a bit of a slander and pervy). It also adds John Gielgud as a diplomat offering Napoleon a chance to return. I think this was made up.

The TV original starred Trevor Howard who would've been better as Napoleon than Kenneth Haigh who just lacks X factor. Haigh is fine but the show needed a star. Was the TV version this pervy? Presumably they wanted someone more sexy.

It feels like a television play - some chats in rooms. They do have some outside scenes and an escape sequence and swim on the ebach but that's about it. Some nice shots of redcoats on clifftips - but Fielder Cook at heart was a televisio director.

I kind of didn't know the point of it. But John Gielgud livens things up in the third actor, Ralph Richardson is fun, and Whitelaw, Hale and the others are good. Moses Gunn plays a black general which has some basis in fact.

Movie review - "Love and Death" (1975) ***1/2

 This was really fun. For me it was the best Woody Allen film to date. The humour felt more grounded. It was about something - life of a man in Napoleonic era. Diane Keaton is given a bigger part and makes it gold.

Sometimes it's too gaggy - they go for gags over character. Sometimes too silly.

But generally very good. Looks great - I wish he hadn't stayed in New York for so long after this. The historical slant is fantastic. Some classic moments.

Movie review - "Dangerous Exile" (1957) *** (re-watching)

Consistently interesting but flawed quasi swashbuckler. It's got a terrific central idea - the boy king Louis XVII arrives on an English island and the French set out to kill him. The film really should be a swashbuckler but director Brian Desmond Hurst seems more interested in the gloomier aspects of the story - there's expressionistic flashbacks to the kid being tortured in prison (high ceilings, use of reds, all that). There isn't a lot of action - we don't get our first duel until over an hour in, and we don't even really see the initial escape.

The hero is beyond gloomy - noble Louis Jourdan, devoted to the king, so devoted he left HIS OWN SON IN PRISON. This film is one of the few that break a great taboo - the hero puts his own son in danger (the kid doesn't look keen to be there), putting him in prison... the kid falls sick, he does get out of prison... but then he's killed by an assassin. Full on. Louis Jourdan goes to get revenge but dude - you put your kid in prison. Worst dad in a movie?

Belinda Lee is beautiful though not much of an actor. The character is American, so there are hints she might be sympathetic to Republic values - this is a real good point of difference that should have been used more. (Aside: Lee kept playing roles Diana Dors could have played - I wonder if they had been developed for Dors? Dors had more humanity and warmth.)

Louis Jourdan has plenty of dash but I kept wanting him to be killed. Keith Michell's French revolutionary officer is far more sympathetic - he doesn't want to arm kids, only does his job under great reluctance, and is quite sympathetic.

Strong support from actors like Finlay Currie and Anne Heywood (traitors on the island) and a superb performance by Richard O'Sullivan as the young prince - alert, traumatised, terrified.

Some lovely photography, art direction and location work. Characters are set up who you think are important but aren't used enough - like that British officer keen on Lee at the beginning, or Marita Hunt. They probably should have sent Michell on the island earlier to engage with Lee and Jourdan. They definitely should have lost the plot element of Jourdan offering up his son.

Still, I've always enjoyed this movie.

Movie review - "The Terror" (1963) **1/2 (re-watching)

Look, it's a mess. I love this, love the story behind it's making, what film fan doesn't, but it's all over the place. It varies in tone and logic.

But it's got Dan Haller sets, Sandra Knight is beautiful and evocative, the atmosphere is creepy, Jack Nicholson is in a French officer's uniform, Jonathan Haze is creepy, Dick Miller is fun as the butler, Karloff is supericonic. The flood stuff works.

A movie of its own genre.

Movie review - "Beau Brummel" (1954) ***

In the 1950s MGM liked to remake old hits in widescreen and colour - about half Stewart Granger's films for the studios were remakes including this one, which was done previously with John Barrymore.

There's plenty of admire - beautiful color and sets, a superb performance by Peter Ustinov as George IV and an equally good one by Robert Morley as his mad father.  Granger is dashing and Elizabeth Taylor looks pretty.
 
But at times  I wondered what the point of it was. There's no action, so it's not a swashbuckler like Scaramouche. It's not heavy on romance so it's not a great drama. It's more a bromance between Granger and Ustinov.

But we never get a sense of what drives Brummell/Granger - why he is the way he is... and indeed why what he is should be interesting. He's not motivated by revenge, or greed, or lust, or love, or a desire to fight injustice. He just seems to be an amiable chap.

I haven't seen the Barrymore version but I read the synopsis and that made sense - he was getting revenge for a thwarted love.

James Donald is an okay villain but again I wasn't sure why he was a villain. I wasn't sure why Taylor loved Granger and he loved her (apart from them both being hot), or why they couldn't be together or why at the end he didn't want to be with her when she wanted to be with him. The ending might have been more moving if Granger hadn't foolishly rejected Ustinov and Taylor for no apparent good reason.

Taylor is gorgeous but feels too young for Granger. They were going to cast Eleanor Parker and I wish they had.

The relationship with Ustinov and Granger is touching - Granger is the big brother Ustinov clearly needs. But too much of this is dramatically undercooked and unclear.

Book review - "Napoleon" by Andrew Roberts

Interesting book on the French leader who Roberts has more than a little admiration for despite (or because) of his militaristic, totalitarian tendencies. Napoleon was a remarkable man who achieved great things. Were these things not possible peacefully?

Exhaustively researched. Roberts does get a bit side tracked by battles, listing battalions and what not. He doesn't have Max Hastings' gift for the small anecdote that illustrates history brilliantly (but then Roberts wasn't a working journo). But he's good on Napoleon's sex life, and writing, and court life. I think the difference between Roberts and Hastings (I'm reading a lot of them at the moment) is that Hastings is more aware of the personal impact of what other people do.

The best bit is the build up to and the description of the Invasion of Russia. It's an easyto read book and Roberts is great at collating detail.

Movie review - "The Fighting O'Flynn" (1949) **1/2

Douglas Fairbanks never quite regained his pre war popularity (such as it was) after the war though he gave it a go. This is an enjoyable swashbuckler which he also produced and co wrote so its a Fairbanks movie. It really needed to be in colour and could have done with a stronger cast and maybe more action.

Patricia Medina is okay but her role is a gift - a lively courtesan - that a really good actress would have made sing. Richard Greene is competent but he's one of those actors you forget are in the movie even while watching him - that's mean, I'm sorry, but it's kind of true. Helena Carter is lively as the lady who falls for Fairbanks - I liked her.

A bit of action. The best bit was Doug sword fighting while really drunk. It has novelty with an Irish hero - the Irish hero is fighting for the British against Napoleon though.The film was a bright spirit.

Random thought - Fairbanks only made a few swashbucklers. He started with two classics though:
1) The Prisoner of Zenda
2) The Corsican Brothers
3) Son of Sinbad
4) The Exile
5) The Fighting O'Flynn

Movie review - "Minions" (2015) **1/2

This starts off brilliantly with some funny gags about the history of the minions - accidentally killing dinosaurs, cavemen, Dracula (the death toll of this is high). I appreciate how the minions are sent to the Arctic by Napoleon until the 1960s, thereby avoiding any annoying questions about them helping the Belgians in the Congo, Stalin, Hitler, etc.

But it struggles as it goes on - maybe "struggles" is the wrong word, because the movie has a lot of pace and energy and colour - but really its a series of chase sequences to some 60s hit. Scarlet Overkill isn't a particularly memorable villain; characters are introduced as if they're going to be important (like that family who give them a lift at the beginning, or Nobert the "idiot" who gets a close up) and not seen again. It feels made up as it goes along.

There are some funny jokes and the cast of voices is top notch.

Movie review - "Sea Devils" (1953) ***

This film gets a bad rap but I've always really enjoyed it. It's got pace, action, colour, historical background and two ideally cast stars in Rock Hudson and Yvonne de Carlo - both very suited for this kind of thing.

Borden Chase's story was supposedly based on Victor Hugo's Toilers of the Sea but I'm not sure how faithful it is. Chase does a good job, throwing us straight into the action - Hudson is a British smuggler in the Napoleonic Wars, who gets involved transporting Yvonne de Carlo back and forth across the channel. He thinks de Carlo is an aristocrat, then a French spy - in fact she's a British spy.

There's a pleasing amount of double crosses and misunderstandings, and de Carlo gets to be active, which suited her - she was less effective in roles where she just hung out and watched the hero. The baddies are smart; the supporting cast earn their keep as characters - de Carlo's untrustworthy boss, a suspicious French novel, a ruthless French spy, a double crossing British smuggler.

Bryan Forbes is irritating as Hudson's sidekick - I think he made a good move going into writing and directing. Maxwell Reed is better as the villainous fellow smuggler who pops in the second half; Reed wasn't a great actor either but his glowering looks were better suited to villains than heroes.

Location filming in England and France helps, so does Raoul Walsh's brisk handling. It's one of the best movies from RKO in the 1950s (admittedly not high praise).

Movie review - "Anthony Adverse" (1936) **1/2

I remember enjoying this as a kid watching it on Bill Collins back in the day - even though I'd never read the book, you could feel it was adapted from one: a prologue leading to the birth of a title character, scenes of his childhood (including meeting a childhood sweetheart), adventures in exotic climes, a nemesis, rags to riches, etc, etc. It remains enjoyable if you can handle some melodramatic over the top acting.

It gets off to a strong start with Anita Louise married to nasty Claude Rains but in love with Louis Hayward (in the role that got him noticed in Hollywood), which results in Rains killing Hayward in a duel and Louise dying in childbirth. The resulting kid is dumped with nuns, and falls for a fellow girl. He then grows up to be the not very exciting Frederic March (I wish they'd cast Errol Flynn), though the girl is the delightful and charming Olivia de Havilland.

There's a very good support cast: Donald Woods as a random best friend, Edmund Gwenn as a kindly benefactor (very coincidentally March's real grandfather), Steffi Duna as a brown face native girl who has hot pants for March, Akim Tamiroff hamming it up outrageously as a slave trader. Most of all there are Claude Rains and Gale Sondergaard as a pair of villains.

I really like Eric Wolfgang Korngold's score and several of the scenes remain etched in my memory: March meeting his son, realising de Havilland has become Napleon's mistress, March talking to his son and them going away together, the death of Hayward. It badly misses a come uppance for Rains and Sondergaard.

Movie review - "The Miracle" (1959) *1/2 (warning: spoilers)

To understand why this got made you need to know it was based on a play that was very popular in Europe in the 1910s and which toured the US in the 1920s. Warners bought the film rights back then and to be honest that's when they should've made it but it kicked around in development hell until it was revived during the late 50s vogue for religious pictures (A Man Called Peter, The Nun's Story, etc.)

The plot is odd. It starts in a convent with some "how do you solve a problem like Maria" style chats among the nuns about Carroll Baker, who is a novice, but tends to day dream. When hunky British soldier Roger Moore trots into town (the time is the Napoleonic Wars and Wellington's campaign in Spain) she gets hot pants and the two of them are soon rolling in the hills. She gets it into her head that Moore is killed, goes a little ga-ga and runs off with the gypsies. Vittoria Gassman falls in love with her and winds up dead. Then she becomes a flamenco dancer; a bullfighter falls in love with her and ends up dead. Then she's reunited with Moore. At the convent the Virgin Mary comes down from a statue and pretends to be Baker. There's a drought. Baker goes back to the church so that Moore can survive the Battle of Waterloo and that it may rain again. I think I've got all that right.

So basically it's about a woman who wants to escape being a nun, but God keeps killing off all the men who are into her, and throwing in some drought for good measure, so she goes back to it. Which isn't very fun.

At times this has shades of Gainsborough Melodramas of the 1940s, with Baker going from nun, to gypsy wench, to flamenco dancer... Maybe that's should have made it. The filmmakers never get the tone right.

Baker actually is compelling in the lead - I always enjoy her, she's a strong actor, great voice, has star quality. She's better than the material. There is camp fun watching her hop around playing all these sort of characters - Baker as a nun is inherently campy. Roger Moore hadn't grown into his looks by this stage; like Baker he's got a great voice, and his performance isn't bad.

There is some hammy support acting from Walter Slezak and Katina Paxinou; some terrible dialogue such as "here's a portrait from my friend Goya" and the Duke of Wellington going "we could fight him here... at Waterloo".

It's a terrible move really only for Roger Moore and Carroll Baker completists, and/or students of religious films of the 1950s.

Script review - "Napoleon" by Stanley Kubrick

Perhaps Stanley Kubrick's most famous "unmade" film, on which he toiled for a number of years but ultimately abandoned due to cost  - though he got his period film kick out of his system with Barry Lyndon. The script of it I've read would have made an interesting movie at the least - it doesn't leap off the page as amazing, with far too much narration explaining what's going on, and over long dialogue speeches. It also seems to take on too much - it's a greatest hits of Napleon's life, going from military academy as a child through to the French revolution, growing power, becoming Emperor, invading Russia, Waterloo, etc.

It does work as drama - Napoleon was an interesting guy - there are some great visuals you can imagine Kubrick directing the hell out of. (It would cost a fortune.) Like a lot of Kubrick films he's into boobs and sex - plenty of Josephine making love, and Napoleon and even Marie-Louise. I'm not sure it's worth doing in the hands of another director - not without that visual brilliance.

Emotionally the guts of the movie concerns Napoleon and Josephine, Napoleon and Joseph, and Napoleon and the Tsar of Russia. They all talk an awful lot but do interesting things. It would have been better than Barry Lyndon.

Movie review - "The Story of Mankind" (1957) **

This made an appearance in Harry Medved's 50 Worst Movies of All Time but truth be told it's not that bad - it is interesting in a uni revue kind of way, with an all star cast keeping things interestingly. The story seems to be a kind of rip off of A Matter of Life and Death with good Ronald Colman and bad Vincent Price arguing in a celestial court over whether humankind is good or bad.

We see a variety of incidents throughout history and lots of stock footage, plus actors like Dennis Hopper (Napoleon), the Marx Brothers (in separate scenes, as Peter Minuit and Isaac Newton and a monk), Hedy Lamar (Joan of Arc), Virgina Mayo (Cleopatra), Marie Wilson (Marie Antoinette), Jim Ameche (Don's younger brother) (Alexander Graham Bell), Peter Lorre (Nero), John Carradine (Egyptian leader).

Film buffs will probably get something out of it - and I genuinely laughed at Groucho's segment, and Harpo's wasn't bad. It's silly and dumb but there are lots of worse movies. The people who wrote and direct it weren't really comedy people - it was directed by Irwin Allen.

Movie review - "HMS Defiant" (1962) **1/2

The year before The Servant sees Dirk Bogarde tormenting another weak man who is ostensibly his superior - Alec Guiness. It's set on a ship in 1797 during the Napoleonic Wars, with Guiness as a captain and Bogarde his officer. Bogarde is sadistic and cruel but also well connected so has a history of tormenting his captains. Guiness doesn't know how to deal with him for the most part, especially when Bogarde starts picking on his weakling midshipman son. Meanwhile downstairs the troops want to mutiny. (This is based on a true story - the Spithead mutinies, which are referenced).

The first problem with this film is it tells two stories - Bogarde undermining Guinness, and the mutiny. It tries to have it both ways, with the troops being inspired to go for the kill when Bogarde takes over after Guiness is injured... but then they were plotting mutiny before... only it wasn't a real mutiny because they just want justice...

The second problem is it pulls its punches. Bogarde orders some people flogged and is mean but his evilness is more sadism. Guiness never really seeks revenge he gets frustrated. The mutineers just want a better deal, only one wants violent payback, and he's the real baddie. It's like cosy British post war industrial relations before the cut-throat antics of the 70s and 80s with the sailors (decent folk as exemplified by Anthony Quayle) going on strike rather than genuinely mutinying. Like so many class conscious films, it's prejudiced - Bogarde is allowed to die because he's bad, but Guiness and his idiot son are allowed to live, and Quayle and the extremist mutineer die.

There's some gorgeous colour photography, an accurate seeming depiction of life on a boat during this time, a bit of action, a decent enough story despite the above problems. Bogarde sweeps the floor with Guiness, whose Obi Wan Kenobi voice is really distracting here and who seems more like a benign hippy that a sea captain. (While I'm at it, it's hard to have too much sympathy for a man who press gangs his sailors.)

Radio review - Lux - "Captain Horatio Hornblower" (1951) **1/2

Both Gregory Peck and Virginia Mayo feel miscast in this adaptation of the movie adaptation of Forster's novel hero. The big gag is he coughs when nervous but he's brave. Like most sea movies e.g. The Sea Hawk it starts at sea, then goes back to land then finishes at sea where the hero is captured by the enemy then escapes. Actually just writing that out it's awfully like The Sea Hawk. (This was meant to be a vehicle for Errol Flynn too but by this stage he was too old and too much trouble.) 

The ending is a bit yuck when Peck finds out Mayo has been widowed so they can be together - hooray. He's hardly been dead five minutes!