Book review - "Starship Troopers" by Robert Henlein (1959)

 Love the movie. Fascinating to read the book and note the differences - the characters are all in there just often different: Carl doesn't meet Johnny and gets killed on Pluto, Carmen is a character Johnny goes on one date with, Johnny's dad lives and joins the army, Diz is a guy who we barely get to know, Ace pops pu then disappears. I think the film did a good adaptation. Though it didn't fix the fifth act.

The action scenes are well done. Love the training detail. It is a bit fascist - like Ancient Rome fascist (it's still a democracy just with a limited franchise). There's a lot of military mentality talk - going on about equipment, and horseplay and what not which feels realistic and is dull.

Book review - "A Splurch in the Kisser: The Movies of Blake Edwards" by Sam Wasson

 Interesting analysis of Edwards' films. I was hoping for a more traditional biography because Edwards had such a colourful life and put it into his films. Not what I wanted but on its own terms worth a read.

Movie review - "Stagecoach" (1966) **1/2

Not bad. Nice colour and locations. Good cast. I wasn't wild about Alex Cord as the Ringo Kidd. Ann Margaret is ideal as a hooker. Mike Connors is fine as John Carradine. Stefanie Powers is the pregnant lady Louise Platt. Robert Cummings is better than Barton Churchill. Van Heflin is ideal as George Bancroft. Bing Crosby is very good as Thomas Mitchell. I liked Keenan Wynn as the baddy. I could've taken or left Red Buttons.

The direction, by Gordon Douglas, lacks the poetry of John Ford but is competent. It doesn't have the emotional connection and warmth of the first. But it isn't bad and it is in colour.

Movie review - "Action in Arabia" (1944) *** (re-watching)

 Fun RKO A minus I think you'd call it. Clearly inspired by Warner Bros movies of this time - RKO didn't make a lot in this line. Quentin Tarantino really likes this movie. Jaunty fun. Great to see Sanders as a heroic leading man.

Movie review - "The Lady Vanishes" (1979) **1/2

 I grew up hearing nothing but bad things about this movie. I think people were just so offended by it. But it has nice locations, stylish widescreen photography.

Some changes are fine, like turning Margaret Lockwood into a Carole Lombard screwball heroine played engagingly by Cybill Shepherd. I like Elliot Gould as a shaggy haired reporter. Their banter, where he talks about her legs and she talks about the men she married, is the most clearly George Axelrod bit of the movie (Axelrod wrote the script).

Other changes were silly. Why not keep someone trying to kill Angela Lansbury only for Shepherd to get a conk on the head? And have that cause her brain injury rather than Cybil doing it drunkenly.

Why not have Cybill Shepherd and Elliot Gould dislike each other at first and banter? Like getting him kicked out of the hotel room. And I missed the Oxford-Cambridge joke. And Shepherd wants to kiss Elliot Gould two thirds of the way through... why not hold off until the end? Did the nun get captured at the end? I wasn't sure.

Still it is a recognisable remake. There's Charters and Caldicott, the adulterous lovers, the nun who works for the baddies but helps them. Herbert Lom is always reliable but too familiar as a baddie - and I think the part would've been better with someone younger and more charming, more of a potential romantic threat to Gould for Shepherd. Angela Lansbury is fine as always but maybe too believable as a spy - dotty, old, tubby Dame Mae Whitty was more fun and unexpected.

I do think they would've been better off, if they wanted to remake it, updating it to the present day and setting it behind the Iron Curtain. I mean, they still had trains then.

The big issue I think is the direction from Anthony Page. He's not bad - perfectly servicable. But there's none of Hitchcock's atmosphere - the menace underneath at the beginning, the sense of Englishmen abroad, the paranoia of the main girl, the light by play.

It occurred to me at the end when Gould and Shepherd sing the tune Lansbury gives them that they were meant to co star in At Long Last Love - both can sing. Lansbury too. Not too late for a musical!

Movie review - "Valentino" (1977) **1/2

 I had heard this film was terrible. It isn't. I mean it has flaws but it's always interesting. Even the fact the film ends with Valentino in a box match a la Rocky and it was made by the producers of Rocky is interesting.

Rudolph Nureyev is Valentino and does okay. He's got the looks, the build, can dance, has charisma. Russell protects him - he shoots him dancing, with his clothes off, strutting around. It's effective.

As a movie buff I enjoyed seeing representations of Jean Acker, Nijinsky, June Mathis (Felicity Kendall), and various executives.

Michelle Phillips  is his main wife. She's beautiful (naked in one scene) but not as effective. Slightly miscast, I felt. However the film is best when focusing on their relationship. The story loses it when she disappears.

Leslie Caron pops up as Nasimova. The last act of the film is odd. Up until then I was having a good time watching this. Ken Russell films are always interesting.

Movie review - "Shaft in Africa" (1973) ***1/2

 Great fun. I haven't seen the other Shaft films so I can't judge compared to that - I gather this changed the tone, sending a New York boy to Africa.

But the fact that he's black gives it wonderful freshness. It's still not that common to see black American movie leads set in Africa. This was shot in Ethiopia so the visuals are fantastic. Richard Rountree is lively and the film has resonance because it's about the modern day slave trade and the baddies seem to be South Africa and when two whites torture a black man at the end with wires you know that sort of thing was going on in South Africa.

Striling Silliphant seems to have at least done some basic research on African culture - of course clitorechtomy gets an airing. It did think it took a little long to get going - Shaft gets kidnapped and undergoes these tests before going on a mission when they could've just asked him to go on the mission.

Vonetta McGee is great value as the female lead and even more fun is Neda Arneric as a nymphomaniac who gives Frank Finlay head in the back of a limo, gets turned on by watching husky blacks on the side of the road, and is turned to good after a session in bed with Shaft.

Three's scenes in France and New York on top of Africa which gives everything a globe trotting feel - almost like James Bond. A good time at the movies if approached in the right spirit.