Movie review - "The 13th Warrior" (1999) **1/2

 Michael Crichton's hot streak in the 1990s - which included Jurassic Park, Disclosure, The Lost World, ER, Airframe - came to a halt with this big budget flop. In hindsight they made a mistake throwing too much money at this story which didn't have to be done on a large scale.

I'm not a fan of slow movies but this one moves along too fast - for instance, it would have been ideal to spent a bit of time with Banderas in Persia before setting out on his journey (why not dramatise him shagging the married woman that led to his exile?). Him being enlisted to go on the journey with the vikings is skirted over - why not dramatise it? Why not have some variation in the characters of the vikings? Why not flesh out the character of the slave girl Banderas sleeps with? 

Decent action. Gorgeous production design. Banderas ideal.

Omar Sharif Top Ten

 (I recognise this article is very English language focused)

1) Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

2) Dr Zhivago (1965) 

3) Genghis Khan (1965) - no kidding! Surprisingly good.

4)  Top Secret! (1984) - small role but he's very funny.

5) The Tamarind Seed (1974) - decent thriller. 

6) The Burglars (1971) - excellent as a villain in this Belmondo movie. 

7) Funny Girl (1968) - his third hit.

 8) The Last Valley (1971)

9) Mackenna's Gold (1969) - not a good film but he's strong. 

10) Oh! Heavenly Dog (1980) - look, I remember this fondly. 

Book review - "Chasing the Panther: Adventures and Misadventures of a Cinematic Life" by Carolyn Pfeiffer

 I read this because I was keen to read about Pfeiffer's adventures as a producer in the 80s with Alan Rudolph, Chris Blackwell, Shep Gordon etc but there is very little of that. This memoir is mostly about her time in Europe in the 60s - as a student, then working in Italy as Claudie Cardinale's assistant, meeting people like Burt Lancaster, Visconti, Delon and Fellini, then working for Delon (being raped by one of Delon's dodgy bodyguards), then Omar Sharif as an assistant (shagging Robert Bolt), being friends with Nathalie Delon and Geraldine Chaplin, becoming a publicisit then eventually working for Shep Gordon, hanging with Robert Altman, dope with Blake Edwards. 

It's pretty interesting stuff - having Sean Connery put his hand on her leg while Diane Cilento was there, a fling with photographer Terence Donovan etc. There is heart break - a daughter (son of an affair with a married man) dies as a child, she finds true love with a journalist who dies of a heart attack. I wish there had been more on her work as producer. But I enjoyed the book.

 

Movie review - "Genghis Khan" (1965) ***

 This doesn't have much of a reputation and some things are cringe inducing like James Mason in yellow face and Fu Macchu moustache and Robert Morley as the Emperor of China. But the script by Beverly Cross is literate and strong, and if the Chinese are improperly played by English actors their characters are clever.

The photography is divine, the production value spectacular. They tried to make a good movie. 

Omar Sharif suits Genghis Khan far better than John Wayne did all those years ago. Stephen Boyd is another mongol - Francois Dorleac is Khan's love interest! Telly Savalas stands out, as usual, as a warrior ally of Sharif.

Has very very little to do with reality. 

Movie review - "Top Secret!" (1984) **** (re-watching)

 Bewildering this wasn't a hit as the jokes are great. Maybe it doesn't have the same heart.  Maybe it lacked cameos. Maybe the central romance isn't as strong. Who knows?

A lot of big props gags.

Book review - "My Name is Barbra" by Barbra Streisand

 I'm not a big Streisand head but have no particularly strong feelings about her. This book is very good though. Well written, enjoyable. Feels "her". Strong willed, eccentric, passionate. She's copped a lot of bad press over the years but from men trying to punish her. Arthur Laurents and Garson Kanin struggled to direct her with their "set and forget" methods. She had better luck with people like Jerome Robbins, William Wyler, and Peter Bogdanovich, people who challenged her. Did badly with weaker directors like Gene Kelly, Frank Pierson.

She writes affectionately of Elliot Gould which I liked - they had issues (he was partial to marijuana, jealousy and had a gambling habit) but was basically supportive. Also she has a lot of time for most of her exes: Ryan O'Neal, Geoge Lazenby (! - it was just a flirtation during On a Clear Day You Can See Forever), Kris Kristofferson, Warren Beatty (who she's not sure if she slept with), Pierre Trudeau, Omar Sharif, Anthony Newley (I didn't know that). Isn't nice about Sydney Chaplin who she had an affair with then called off and he behaved badly (Walter Matthau was a mate of his, hence his bad attitude on Hello Dolly). Likes most of her co stars even if she didn't fall in love with them (she was a method actress that way) - eg James Caan. She adored Brando and they had a friendship but not an affair (I don't think).

Full of "gee I wish you'd done that" moments-  she should've turned director on A Star is Born, should've made Merry Widow with Ingmar Bergman

She's ambivalent about Sue Menges (says Menges begged her to be in All Night Long), Jon Peters.

Particularly fascinating accounts of her musicals and movies especially The Way We Were (admits to not remembering much about For Pete's Sake). Also deep dives her albums and TV specials.

Lots of good juice like Arthur Laurents sending her a mean letter after her first album - but she also liked him because of The Way We Were; Mandy Patinkin demanding to have an affair; Complex descriptions of Ray Stark, Sydney Pollack

There's a bit too much about clothes and blocking of scenes. And the last few chapters are really grim - the Clintons, politicis, philanthropy, her 21st century career. But def read the first bit.

Movie review - "The Last Valley" (1971) **1/2

 Bid budget flop from ABC Pictures which essentially ended James Clavell's movie career - did he have any other chances, I wonder? I can see why it didn't do well although there is much to admire. It looks like a dream, gorgeous photography and Austrian locations, it's about the Thirty Years War so has lots of novelty, there's star power in the form of Michael Caine and Omar Sharif, it tries to handle some complexity of the time (Protestants, vs Catholics). The acting is very strong - Caine is excellent, Sharif good and Michael Gouthard brilliant as a nasty mercenary. It's a smart epic. It has theme. Interesting support characters. Beautiful John Barry score.

And yet...

It's confusing. The basic concept is simple - peaceful valley tries to avoid war.  Mercenaries come to valley. Try to hide out. War ensues. But Clavell - while writing complex support characters - can't quite nail the basic story. He doesn't really dramatise the mercenaries falling under the spell of the valley in the way say The Magnificent Seven did. For instance, the Caine romance with Florinda Bolkan is desultory. I think Sharif should have been at the valley to start off with. It's confusing to have him strolling through the waste lands and discover it at the same time as Caine does. Making Sharif more part of the valley would've been easier.

And the people in the valley aren't very nice. Nigel Davenport's village headman gives up his wife and waits to turn on Sharif once Caine leaves. There's a religious nutter priest who burns a woman at the stake.

I think American audiences were turned off by the foreign-ness of it despite Caine and Sharif. I know everyone was fake Russina in Zhivago but it would've been easier just to have Caine play a British mercenary captain. The accent is distracting. i mean good on him for putting in thought but the merc could've come from anywhere. 

The film didn't need to cost as much as it did. The battles are appreciated and the townsfolk dancing... but you just need a village, a valley, and wreckage. They could've done it cheaper. I think it would've been a better movie. Like, did we need that final siege battle outside the valley?

It's got a downer ending, Caine dies. Bolkan is burnt to death. Sharif gives up his woman. The valley is no good.

I appreciate this. Can understand people loving it.

Movie review - "Doctor Zhivago" (1965) ****

 A film that broke many rules for a blockbuster - it was set in Russia, about Russians, had a passive hero who just mopes around for three hours (compared to Lawrence, Ben Hur and company who got out and did stuff). Zhivago is always swept up in events - mum dies, World War One, Russian Revolution, bands of partisans. He's bailed out of trouble twice by Alec Guinness,  once by Rod Steiger, his wife and mistress seem to make decisions. The only decision he really makes is to cheat on his wife.

Of course it also had David Lean and his stunning compositions. And watching it again, Lara carries as much action as the real hero is Lara - she's the one who is loved by Tom Courtney's revolutionary, is raped by Rod Steiger, shoots Steiger, becomes a nurse, goes looking for Courtney.

And the film has real emotional sweep. I mean, it's full of nice people - Omar Sharif, Geraldine Chaplin, Julie Christie. Even tough Alec Guinness loves his half brother and tries to help him. Tom Courtney becomes ruthless but starts off idealistic. Rod Steiger is nasty, raping Christie, but saves her in the end.  Then there's this horrible war and revolution. The pettiness and meanness of the Bolshevieks is well depicted. You can't help feel sorry for Sharif being whisked away for two years by those partisans, and then separated from Christie, and dying of a heart attack calling out to her. Of course his life has compensations - doting wife and mistress, people looking out for him, a house to hide out with cool ice all over it.

Acting is consistently excellent - Guinness is terrific as a creepy commie, so too Courtney (I wish we'd seen his death scene instead of it being described), a restrained Rod Steiger, Geraldine Chaplin and Sharif moon. Klaus Kinski is electric in a brief appearance.

The X factor was Julie Christie - beautiful, smart, capable, fresh. Sharif's youthful romantic looks suit the part very well - he's better I think than original choice Peter O'Toole would have been. The Brits make good Russians.

It ticks the boxes of a successful epic. It has a simple storyline to follow - will Sharif root Julie Christie despite being married, will everyone avoid being killed - but all sorts of complexities around it. Plus cool stuff like the compositions - cavalry charges, cuddling in sleds, ice on the window, flowers.

Movie review - "The Tamarind Seed" (1974) ***

 Julie Andrews goes back into spy territory, as a British secretary romancing a Russian diplomat Omar Sharif. They're not a bad team. I bit weird. Andrews is so sensible and mannered as usual but she is a star and she suits the character - as a sensible woman with a taste for running off with married men. Andrews is recovering from one affair, and starts another. Sharif plays his role like a Latin lover but that suits him.

The film has pleasures. John Barry's lush score, Maurice Binder's credits, both James Bond like. Smart characters. Excellent support cast - Sylvia Syms is superb as the wife of gay spy Dan O'Herlihy, Syms is shagging Bryan Marshall who works for Anthony Quayle, who is also excellent as a head spy. Russian spies include Oscar Homolka and Kate O'Mara (office girl). I like how it was set in Barbados. There's a shoot out at the end.

I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would. 

Movie review - "Funny Lady" (1975) **

 Done with gloss but it feels old fashioned for 1975. It's very much in that 20th Century Fox musical mode - a true story heavily fictionalised with plenty of production numbers. I didn't recognise any of the songs. Barbra Streisand fans will like it, with all the songs and outfits and jokes. The bulk of the plot is a squabbling rom com with James Caan, hamming it up with Babs, as Billy Rose. These two are fun. Omar Sharif adds a dash of drama as her ex.

I didn't really like it but it wasn't made for me.

Movie review - "Ashanti" (1979) **

 Michael Caine can give a bad performance - he looks really bored in this movie, which has him as a doctor in Africa whose doctor wife (Beverly Johnson) is kidnapped by modern day slave traders.

This film has some good things in it - location filmmaking in Africa, Johnson is stunning and not a bad actor, the script is simple, the cast is consistently interesting, I didn't mind cameos from William Holden as a chopper pilot (killed quite quickly) and Rex Harrison as an anti slaver, Kabir Bedi has a lot of charisma.

But the music is that awful 70s TV music, Peter Ustinov is absurd as a villainous Arab, it's a bit slow at almost two hours, with no pace, speed or interesting acting. It needed more character work - more dynamics between Caine and Johnson, Caine and Bedi and Johnson needed someone to interact with in the slave group. It's not awful just dull.

George MacDonald Fraser did some uncredited work on the script to beef up Omar Sharif's role. The producer of this was going to make Tai Pan which Fraser had adapted.

Movie review - Pink Panther#5 - "The Pink Panther Strikes Again" (1977) ***1/2

 Very funny. Simple concept - Herbert Lom tries to kill Clouseau - works brilliantly because it builds on the premise, i.e. the world sends assassins to kill him. Lesley Anne Downe is hilarious as a Russian spy who falls for him. Omar Sharif plays an assassin in a short scene.

Movie review - "The Wind and the Lion" (1975) ***1/2 (re-watching)

 Fun. Big. Loud, Romantic. Silly. Great idea for a film. Sean Connery perfect as the Shiekh, for all his Scottish accent - he had more life than original choice Omar Sharif and more youth than Anthony Quinn. Candice Bergen is fine, though once I heard Katherine Hepburn was who Milius originally wanted I kept wishing it was her. They could've had Hepburn, someone to play her daughter to have a romance, and kept the kids.

The film feels as though it is missing bits. Like a meeting between Bergen and Brian Keith (fabulous as Roosevelt). A developed subplot involving the kid (like have him be corrupted, or have him betray his mother.) A support character for Sean Connery - a sidekick or one of his wives.

I love how the supporting characters were gung ho Americans, like the marine captain and the diplomat. This is a film full of life with tongue in cheek... a sense of humour that Milius lost.

Easily one of Milius' best movies as director.

Movie review - "Juggernaut" (1974) ***

 Not a disaster movie but a bomb disposal thriller. Such films are tricky to make because while it is a terrifying job on screen it's usually someone poking around wires and the bomb goes off or it doesn't and since Richard Harris is the star you can be confident it won't.

But the joy in this comes more with the peripheral details -the location footage of the cruiser (on the North Sea), David Hemmings and Harris and jo skydiving out of a plane, the quality of the cast, Omar Sharif's ship captain casually picking up Shirley Knight, Anthony Hopkins' constantly exhausted and sea sick wife, Roy Kinnear desperately trying to keep spirits up, the Pakistani waiter with a thick Scouser accent, Freddie Jones' superb performance as a resentful villain, Harris' cocky swagger (the best moment is him at the end clapping "Fallon's a legend"). 

Director Richard Lester said he had a great time making this and you can sense that.

Movie review - "MacKenna's Gold" (1969) **1/2

An odd movie - considered a flop at the time, though apparently a big hit in India, this is fascinating to watch today, in part because of its flaws but also because of its oddness.

The basic story is a simple Western - a bunch of people go after a map containing gold, facing the environment, Apaches, cavalry, each other. And it's core this is inherently medium budget at best - the main characters are a marshall, an outlaw who kind of loves him, a girl who comes along to prove the lead isn't gay, an Indian girl who wants to bang the marshall, a scary Indian, and a pursuing cavalryman.

Faced with this is then as if writer-producer Carl Foreman and director J. Lee Thompson thought "we can't just give them that, this is the blockbuster era" - and they jazzed it up: Cinerama photography, POV shots of people on horseback, a spectacular earthquake, location filming in the Grand Canyon, sweeping vistas.

It cost $7 million and it didn't need to. There is stunning photography but this is incorporated into some really obvious studio work.

The script is very patchy. Far too many scenes of Peck escaping and being recaptured. Around 45 minutes in Foreman introduces all these new characters - Raymond Massey, Edward G Robinson, Burgess Meredith, Lee J Cobb, Eli Wallach, Anthony Quayle, etc - and within twenty minutes they're all killed. Why even have them? (Maybe Foreman wanted to invoke High Noon which actually isn't a bad idea for a script - the town from High Noon looking for gold - but they set up all these people and then just kill them.) Would the cavalry really kill them all?

Some exciting action sequences. Raymond Massey and Burgess Meredith being killed by Apaches - Meredith pleading with glasses and money and being killed. A fight between Sharif and Peck at the end is very well done bar the studio work.

Plenty of nutty bits. The opening song abut a buzzard. The narration that feels shoved in after a tricky post production process. The effects at the end aren't entirely convincing. Julie Newmar and Omar Shariff show their arse swimming. A naked Newmar tries to hump Peck in the water (he's clothed) then when he rejects her she tries to kill Sparv. George Lucas made a short film during the shoot. Dimitri Tiomkin co produced.

The acting is pretty good - Savalas is reliably excellent. It's one of Sharif's best performances, the film should've have focused more on him and Gregory Peck. Peck is solid. Camilla Sparv has a big chance as the girl, and she's gorgeous but not really up to it.

Movie review - "Green Ice" (1981) **

One of the more frustrating ITC mid-Atlantic adventure tales, mostly because the ingredients are there but it doesn't gel. It's an adventure heist tale about emeralds set in Colombia and shot in Mexico - the Mexico locations are gorgeous and Anne Archer was never more beautiful or fun as the rich woman investigating her sister's death. Omar Sharif is a reliable baddie and Ryan O'Neal is charming.

What went wrong? The story fails to get momentum - it keeps stopping for chats and seems reluctant to turn up the head on its heroes. It could never get a fix on the characterisatinos of the leads (apart from her being uptown) and the status of their relationship. They don't use the villains enough - the guy who killed the sister is killed very quickly

O'Neal takes his shirt off an almost absurd amount of times. The credits are by Bond titles guy Maurice Binder and feel Bond like. Bill Wyman wrote the score.

It's such a shame - this didn't need to be bad.

Book review - "Homework: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years" by Julie Andrews (2019)

No one denies Andrews' status as a Hollywood icon but what should be a fascinating book - a look at the peak of her Hollywood career, from Mary Poppins through to That's Life! - is a hard slog. It covers what should be interesting stuff - the making of Darling Lili, for instance - and manages to make it dull.

I think it was the logistics. There's so much logistics - all her kids, and step kids, and ex, and family, and Blake Edwards' family - and dealing with homes in Switzerland, and Malibu and going on tour. She didn't make that many movies in the 70s but she seems to be always on the move, making TV specials or following Blake Edwards around or performing in concerts. She's forever worried about the kids education or what the kids are up to. It's a wearying book to read.

Andrews doesn't seem like the brightest tool in the shed though her heart is in the right place (she did a lot of charity work for Vietnamese/Cambodian orphans). She seems a fairly uncomplicated person - I could be wrong about this, but her world view seems narrow: she's spent most of her life working and performing and when she made enough to not work as hard she got drawn into this life of domestic minutae.

The book is invaluable however as a portrait of Blake Edwards - charming, charismatic, talented, self centered, selfish, adulterous (it's implied... Andrews only talks of a flirtation with Peter Sellers' wife but then admits Edwards wrote all those scripts about middle aged men tempted into adulterly), manipulative, controlling, drug addicted, boozy, manic depressive. He has a gall bladder attack than turns out to be nothing when Andrews' mother is dying meaning Andrews couldn't be with her - that sort of thing.

Andrews has done a lot of psycho analysis (she meets Edwards by sharing the same analyst) but it doesn't seem to have given her a lot of particular insight - I get the impression she just liked talking about herself (I could be wrong). She talks about her shrink giving her geography lessons and what not to make up for her lack of education - that's a tutor's job! Julie the guy was ripping you off. But then I think Andrews was one of those performers who are susceptible to people pushing her around - which is why she lasted so long with Blake Edwards.

Andrews encounters with famous people are remarkably un-notable - James Garner was nice, Omar Sharif was nice, Paul Newman was nice, Chris Plummer was nice. Rex Harrison was impatient - that's about as juicy as this gets. The one surprise was that she was good mates with Carol Burnett - they should have made a movie together.

Worth readings if you are an Andrews fanatic and/or interested in Blake Edwards.

Aside: I always figured Andrews sabotaged her career in the late 60s with her choices (Star, Darling Lili)... but when you think about it what other musicals could she have been in? Camelot I guess but... Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? Bedknobs and Broomsticks? She would have been tricky to cast in the 70s.

Book review - "John Frankenheimer: A Conversation with Charles Champlin"

Frankenheimer had one of the all time hot streaks - both during the Golden Years of television where he was one of the stars, but also his early films. Young Savages, All Fall Down, The Manchurian Candidate, The Train, Seven Days in May, Seconds... Critics cooled on him from Grand Prix onwards after which his career seemed to wobble: The Extraordinary Seaman, The Fixer, The Gypsy Moths, I Walk the Line, The Horseman, Impossible Object, The Iceman Cometh, 99 and 44/100% Dead,. There were some "commercial" films - French Connection II, Black Sunday, The Prophecy - and a drinking problem. His career dipped in the 80s but he came back in the 90s with TV work. This book is before Ronin.

Obviously a smart guy - lucky in how he got into tv, but you make your own luck, developing material, taking chances, taking risks. Strong work ethic - he managed to kick the booze. He whinges a bit about studios and like all people in their memoirs blames other people for his films that flopped but in fairness takes some brickbats too.

The film is full of interesting bits like his sometimes prickly relationship with Burt Lancaster, saying James Garner was only effective when playing "a shit", his hopes for The Horseman (the Afghan government offered him free land), Gordon Stulberg of Fox agreed to finance 99 and 44/100% Dead if Richard Harris was cast, Don Johnson was a pain on Dead Bang.

An entertaining book, I just wish it included some of his later career.

Book review - "Just Tell Me When You Want Me to Cry" by Richard Fleischer

This isn't one of the famous director memoirs - at least, not that I'm aware - and it sat on my bookshelf for a long time unread, but it was good. Very self effacing for a work from a director - it doesn't talk about his life and times and career so much as encounters with crazy characters. They are certainly memorable: Howard Hughes at RKO making him shoot additional footage for His Kind of Woman; dealing with Orson Welles on Compulsion; Kirk Douglas on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Vikings; Rex Harrison on Dr Doolittle (making them hire Sidney Poitier, then quitting, then being replaced by Christopher Plummer and coming back again); Charles Bronson on Mr Majestyk; Daryl F Zanuck in thrall to Juliete Greco; ducking work with John Wayne on North to Alaska; Laurence Oliver on The Jazz Singer.

There's more affectionate reminiscences: working with the team of Stanley Kramer and Carl Foreman; the hard-living polio-afflicted screenwriter Earl Felton (who I'd never heard of before); Gilbert Roland on Bandido; his early mentor, RKO hard man Sig Rogell.

It's all great fun. I wished that there were more on other films Fleischer made - there's nothing on Che! or See No Evil or Amityville 3-D or lots of other movies. But what's here is good.

Movie review - "Le Casse" (1971) (aka "The Burglars") ***

Jean Paul Belmondo never really made a stab at English speaking stardom, but this feels very aimed at the international market - it's a heist thriller, with large slabs of non speaking sequences and two Hollywood co-stars, Omar Sharif and Dyan Cannon.

It's a film of set pieces - an opening 20 minute credit and burglar set piece (shades of Rififi), a 13 minute car chase sequence (shades of French Connection), 10 minutes of Belmondo visiting a cabaret with Dyan Cannon, a superb chase scene on board a bus, a final shoot out at the docks.

Belmondo is always good in these sort of roles (i.e. likeable thieves). Cannon's part is decorative and not much else; she is treacherous (surprise, not) and gets slapped around by Belmondo (surprise, not). Sharif was the revelation for me - excellent as a bastard of a cop, genuinely threatening. He should have played more villains.

The plot has a simple concept - corrupt cop tries to rob crooks - but it got better as it went along. I wish the action set pieces had been better motivated. It was shot partly on location in Athens which means it looks different.